Analysis and Monitoring of the Negative Impact on the Dnipro River Ecosystem

Dnipro resources make about 80% of Ukraine's water resources providing water to 32 million out of 49 million people living in Ukraine and 2/3 of the economical potential of the country. At the same time, human activities result in resource depletion of the Dnipro ecosystem.

As a result of construction of coordinated hydroelectric system on the Dnipro, water covered about 600 thousand ha of fertile floodplain land, and together with it algae bloom, thousands of tons of dead fish, bank deterioration and shallowing have become commonplace.

The total length of the Dnipro reservoirs is about 3 thousand km, and almost one third of them are the areas of intensive bank abrasion and erosion. A 100 m to 1km wide strip of erosion processes covers one third of the Dnipro left bank.

Lack of in situ observations prevents from assessing the dynamics of this process and performing geographical zoning of the erosion area. Application of innovation technologies - remote sensing and geoinformational systems - allows performing such analysis, as well as assess current condition of hydrotechnical constructions on the Dnipro reservoirs.

Taking into account the aforementioned, the State Water Management Committee of Ukraine requested ULRMC to study the possibilities of using information technologies (GIS and remote sensing) to monitor negative impact of waters on the Dnipro ecosystem:

• Bank deterioration process;
• Erosion processes in the buffer zone of the Dnipro reservoirs;
• Development of shallow water areas in the reservoirs;
• Land and built-up areas underflooding;
• Unauthorized economic activities in buffer zones and monitoring of the state of hydrotechnical protective constructions.

In course of the project initiated in 2002 by ULRMC specialists with the assistance of the experts of the Dnipro Basin Administration of Water Resources under the State Water Management Committee of Ukraine have performed the following activities using archive Landsat images:

• Dynamics analysis of bank deterioration of Kaniv Reservoir and upper part of Kremenchuk Reservoir;
• Identification of shallow areas on defined water areas;
• Analysis of economic activities in the buffer zones and on the study areas of the reservoirs.

According to Valeriy V. Serenko, Chief Project Specialist of ULRMC, the above mentioned materials derived from the decoded images acquired in 1988 and 2000-2001 have already been handed over to the Dnipro Basin Administration of Water Resources to be compared with the in situ data. After the data representativeness analysis, ULRMC will be able to measure the characteristics of negative impact of waters on the Dnipro ecosystem.

This project is being implemented through financial assistance of the US Agency of International Development (USAID-Kyiv). This project is a preparatory stage for ULRMC to participate in the full-scale monitoring of harmful impacts of waters on the ecology of the Dnipro Basin. The monitoring is provided for by the National Program of Ecological Rehabilitation of the Dnipro River.

Click here to get the information about the Ukrainian organizations that actively study the problems of the Dnipro Basin.

To learn more about the water problems and news go to the sites and portals on water issues.

Want to extend your knowledge of water terms? Read in Russian:

Ecological and Hydrogeological Dictionary published by the Institute of Hydrogeology under the Russian Academy of Sciences

Brief Dictionary for Specialists in Monitoring of Ecological State of Minor Rivers and Lakes