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Russia’s risk is thermal, hydrological and informational at once

Part I describes systems and their couplings. It assesses no authority and ranks no federal subject.

7 min read2 figures2 tables16 notesNR-COUNTRY-RUS-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Russia’s risk is thermal, hydrological and informational at once
    1. 1.1 The questions this part answers
    2. 1.2 The argument
    3. 1.3 Twenty couplings between five systems
    4. 1.4 Reinforcing loops
  4. 2Key findings
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Heat, drought and smoke in a grain and forest region
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

1.1The questions this part answers

Key questions

  • Where is the Russian Federation’s risk concentrated, and in which systems?
  • Which couplings carry shocks from one system to the next?
  • Which capabilities hold under compound stress, and which are only documented?
  • What must the 2027 programme measure first?

In this part

  • Narrative
  • Headline finding
  • Lead figure
  • Five system chapters
  • Twelve-domain reading
  • Sector screens
  • Dependency matrix
  • Risk objects
  • Capability ladder
  • Scenario
  • Three lenses
  • Portfolio

1.2The argument

The Russian Federation spans boreal forest, steppe grain land, an Arctic coast and a long seismic margin in the Far East. This baseline reads its exposure as three forces acting together: a climate that is warming faster than the global mean, an economy that depends on energy and grain exports, and a data environment in which several official series are no longer released.

The climate layer is the best documented. 2025 was the second-warmest year on record, at +1.24 °C, and Arctic winter and autumn were the warmest since 195156. Over 1979 to 2021 the Arctic warmed nearly four times faster than the globe29, and permafrost temperatures have risen at a global scale30. A diesel tank failure at Norilsk in 2020 released about 17,500 t of fuel, and the owner attributed it to ground subsidence, a cause that has not been established32.

The energy layer carries national income and national risk. Natural gas supplied 53% of primary energy in 2023, and Russia supplied 11% of world crude exports9. Thermal plants produced 57.5% of electricity in 2025, and nuclear and hydropower together produced about 35%8. The Energy Strategy to 2050 took effect in April 202510. The NDC states that access to foreign equipment, technology and capital markets has been restricted since 20221.

The food and water layers show weather sensitivity and regional events. The 2025 grain harvest was 141.2 Mt on the Rosstat series that excludes the new regions22. Water is abundant per person, about 29,895 m³ of renewable internal freshwater18, yet the Orsk dam failed in April 2024 when the Ural River reached 9.6 m against a design level of 5.5 m26.

The information layer limits every reading. Rosstat stopped releasing monthly births and deaths in 202524, and the national emissions total from the 2026 inventory was not read for this edition2. Where a series is missing, this edition says so, names the source that would fill it and does not estimate.

This edition therefore reads Russia’s risk as a property of couplings and of evidence gaps. The matrix, risk objects, capability ladder and scenario that follow ask the same two questions: where does a shock travel next, and who holds the capability to stop it?

Figure 1.1How is Russia’s electricity generated? Shares of generation in the unified system (%)

Thermal plants produced more than half of 2025 generation. Nuclear and hydropower together produced about 35%, and wind and solar under 1%8. The NDC reports a 37% low-carbon share for 2024 on its own basis1.

ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
Thermal plants57.5
Nuclear18.7
Hydropower16.7
Industrial plants6.2
Wind0.6
Solar0.3

Source: as cited in the note to this figure. Year 2025.

Figure ID FIG-COUNTRY-RUS-2026-BASELINE-01-003

1,166TWh

generation, 20258

−1.2%

change on 20248

271GW

installed capacity, 1 January 20268

53%

gas in primary energy, 20239

1.3Twenty couplings between five systems

The Russian Federation matrix types the twenty couplings between the five core systems. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events; they set the starting graph that the Q1 2027 Foundry cut will test.

Figure 1.2Couplings between the five systems

Each line is one coupling from one system to another, drawn by the strength the edition assigns. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events.

  • Strong
  • Moderate
  • Weak

Source: this edition’s coupling matrix (Table 1.1); status Estimated.

Table 1.1Coupling matrix: from the row system to the column system
From, toWATENEFOOHLTBIO
WAT Water·STRONG
nuclear cooling · hydro		STRONG
irrigation · rain-fed yield		MODERATE
drinking water		STRONG
flows · wetlands
ENE EnergyMODERATE
pumping · treatment		·STRONG
fuel · fertiliser · cold chain		STRONG
facility power · cooling		MODERATE
reservoirs · land use
FOO FoodMODERATE
withdrawals · nutrients		WEAK
biofuel feedstock		·STRONG
nutrition · food safety		STRONG
land conversion
HLT HealthWEAK
workforce		WEAK
workforce		MODERATE
labour · disease		·WEAK
residues
BIO BiodiversitySTRONG
regulation · filtration		MODERATE
fire on lines · biomass		STRONG
pollination · soils		MODERATE
zoonoses · smoke		·
Strength: strong, moderate or weak; a Nexus estimate (status Estimated) from cited evidence and analogue events. The scale is defined in Annex A.

Transmission paths

  1. 01

    CLI → FOO

    Heat and drought lower yields and raise export and price pressure.

    Inferred 2025 harvest context22

  2. 02

    CLI → INF

    Permafrost thaw weakens foundations, tanks and pipelines in the north.

    Reported Norilsk 202032

  3. 03

    CLI → WAT → INF

    Spring flood overtops a dam and cuts housing and roads.

    Reported Orsk 202426

  4. 04

    SEI → INF

    A great subduction earthquake and tsunami strike a remote coast.

    Reported Kamchatka 202525

  5. 05

    TRD → ENE → FIN

    External demand and logistics shifts pass into energy and public revenue.

    Inferred 2024 and 2025 growth20

1.4Reinforcing loops

A shock entering either system of a loop can return amplified through the other.

Table 1.2Pairs of systems where both directions are rated strong
LoopFirst directionSecond direction
WAT and BIOWater to biodiversity: flows · wetlandsBiodiversity to water: regulation · filtration
FOO and BIOFood to biodiversity: land conversionBiodiversity to food: pollination · soils
A causal-loop reading of the matrix (Sterman, Business Dynamics, 2000): structural, from estimated strengths, not a measured feedback.

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 5Roshydromet (ed.), Report on climate features on the territory of the Russian Federation in 2025. Roshydromet, Moscow, February 2026.back
  2. 6The Moscow Times (ed.), “2025 was Russia’s second warmest year on record.” The Moscow Times, 2026, reporting the Roshydromet annual climate report.back
  3. 29M. Rantanen, A. Y. Karpechko, A. Lipponen et al., “The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979,” Communications Earth & Environment, vol. 3, 2022.back
  4. 30B. K. Biskaborn, S. L. Smith, J. Noetzli et al., “Permafrost is warming at a global scale,” Nature Communications, vol. 10, article 264, 2019. doi:10.1038/s41467-018-08240-4. doi:10.1038/s41467-018-08240-4back
  5. 32S. Rajendran et al., “Monitoring oil spill in Norilsk, Russia using satellite data,” Scientific Reports, vol. 11, 2021.back
  6. 9U.S. Energy Information Administration (ed.), Russia: country analysis brief. EIA, Washington, last updated 24 July 2025.back
  7. 8System Operator of the Unified Energy System (ed.), Operating results of the unified energy system in 2025, as reported by TASS, 14 January 2026.back
  8. 10Government of the Russian Federation (ed.), Energy Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2050, Order No. 908-r of 12 April 2025. Moscow, 2025.back
  9. 1Government of the Russian Federation (ed.), Second Nationally Determined Contribution of the Russian Federation. Submission to the UNFCCC, Moscow, September 2025.back
  10. 22Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) (ed.), Grain and wheat harvest 2025, excluding new regions, as reported by Interfax, 24 August 2026.back
  11. 18World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators: freshwater withdrawals (ER.H2O.FWTL.ZS) and renewable internal freshwater per capita (ER.H2O.INTR.PC), Russian Federation. Data vintage of 8 October 2026. World Bank, Washington.back
  12. 26Al Jazeera (ed.), “Russia evacuates 4,000 people after dam bursts, floods near Kazakh border,” 6 April 2024; WAM (ed.), “Over 7,700 people evacuated from flooded areas in Russia’s Orenburg Region,” April 2024.back
  13. 24The Moscow Times (ed.), “Rosstat stops publishing monthly population data amid war deaths, demographic crisis.” The Moscow Times, 7 July 2025.back
  14. 2UNFCCC secretariat (ed.), Russian Federation: 2026 National Inventory Document and Common Reporting Tables, 1990 to 2024. Submitted 25 June 2026. UNFCCC, Bonn, 2026.back
  15. 25U.S. Geological Survey (ed.), M 8.8, 2025 Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Earthquake, event us6000qw60. USGS, Reston, 29 July 2025.back
  16. 20World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators: GDP growth (NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG), Russian Federation. Data vintage of 8 October 2026. World Bank, Washington.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 1: Russia’s risk is thermal, hydrological and informational at once. In Russian Federation Systems Risk and Resilience Report 2026: The State of the Russian Federation’s Interdependent Systems (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-COUNTRY-RUS-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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Sector signature

The sectors behind Russian Federation.

A reading aid: the sectors the findings run through and how strongly they depend on each other.

Select corners · hover lines6 / 15 relations

Signature

Water and its partners

Water gives irrigation to food (0.8), cooling water and hydropower to energy (0.6) and environmental flows to biodiversity (0.6).

W · E · I · F · H · B

Sectors
4 of 6
Relations
6 of 15
Coupling
0.43 share of total

Strongest relations in play

  • Food → Biodiversity · land conversion0.6
  • Water → Energy · cooling water and hydropower0.6
  • Water → Food · irrigation0.8
  • Water → Biodiversity · environmental flows0.6
Teaching values for a typical city-region, not measurements for any place. Coupling is the summed strength of the relations in play, as a share of all fifteen.
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