Moskaleva O., Bezugluj V., Tsvetayeva O.
Oles Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University
THE MAJOR ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF THE RIVER DNIPRO
Dnipro is the third length basin area in Europe what leaking on the territory of tree countries: Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. It is the largest river of our country, the symbol power, its multiannual history. Dnipro provides water not only for water users with in its basin but to the main source of water supply of major industrial centers in the south and north eastern Ukraine. Dnipro provides water to about 2/3 of the territory of Ukraine, including about 30 million people, 50 major cities and industrial centers about 10 thousand villages and more than one thousand public economic and 50 large irrigation systems.
During its life, the mankind is trying to get as much as possible from without regard to its potential possibilities. This led to the disruption of the natural balance.
The main causes of the crisis are:
- building cascade reservoirs on the Dnipro that radically changed the dynamics of the runoff;
- large-scale reclamation;
- the construction of numerous industrial complexes in the basin river;
- huge volumes of water with drawls for industry and accretion.
These reasons that degraded the ecosystem of Dnipro where the valuable species of fish extinct, the huge amount of terragenous deposits, heavy metals, radionuclides, humus substances accumulate, coast erosion develops.
The enterprises pollute the waters of the Dnipro pouring their waste water into the river. Petroleum, carbon, iron cyanide, nitrogen ammonium, nitrite, rafinidy, heavy metals, biogenic and organic substances appear there. These substances alter the quality and transparency of the water changing water salinity, flowering banks appear and organisms die.
The biggest industrial facilities, pollutants on the Dnipro are: metallurgical factory named after Dzerzhinsky (Dniprodzerzhynsk), plant «Zaporizstal» (Zaporizhzhia), metallurgical plant named after Petrovsky ( Dnipropetrovsk). Every year they throw under 156, 104 and 93 m³ of wastewater pollutants from sewage companies into the Dnipro.
The largest nuclear power plant in Europe in Zaporizhzhya is located near Dnipro. It is more than 20 liters of effluent in the areay Zaporizhzhia or Herson in 1 m³ Dnipro water. This figure rises and every year.
About 900000 tons of pollutants gets basin in Ukraine onto Dnipro. In 1990 the total number of substances that fall into water with sewage is 793000 tons. In the 1991–1995 the average annual amount is 1003000 tons, in 2005 – 26100000 tons, 2009 – 44270000 tons, 2010 – 47640000 tons (see Fig. 1).
The most polluters of water resources are utilities, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy, coke severe, energy transportation engineering and agriculture. Only sewer systems of Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhya annually throw 196 and 172 million accordingly m³ of polluting wastewater in Dnipro.
Agriculture is one of the main sources of nutrients. The great plowering of lands, their reclamation, erosion and other factors lead to an increase in revenue drain agricultural land to water bodies.
Fig. 1. The dynamics of emission of harmful substances into the Dnipro
Another factor of pollution treatment is the low efficiency of available facilities. Centralized biological structures are working ineffectively. There are no virtually local treatment facilities to remove the excess of minerals or water desalination. Scientists found that 80% of human diseases associated with tainted water.
In general the deterioration of the ecological status of water bodies of the Dnipro may threaten the genetic degradation of population of Ukraine and affect the environmental performance of farms. To prevent, it is necessary to make the scheme of sewage and pollutants, processing waste, to develop the planning of the household considering ecological reserve and economic opportunities. This requires the qualified personnel with a high level of environmental consciousness and the scientific view of nature.