There is a river system in Russia which deserves particular attention of my readers and it is infamous «Mother Volga». Not everyone realises that Volga is the largest European river, accounting for the area, which is two and a half times size of France.
In USSR, the emphasis was put on developing industrial clusters. One of such clusters is Volga basin, which is now the most economically developed region of Russia, accounting for 40% of the Russian population, 45% of the country’s industry and 50% of it’s agriculture.
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| Mother Volga Monument |
The water quality problems in this region are most severe in Russia, as constant toxic contamination coming from industrial wastewater and domestic and agricultural sewage water started many decades ago (see my previous blog entry). The Volga basin account for 1/3 of all water pollution in Russia, however the issue has not received a very widespread coverage in Russian scientific media so far.
- Industrial, Agricultural and Domestic pollution
The Volga is being polluted right from the very upstream reaches. There is a number of large cities located along it’s stream such as Astrakhan, Volgograd, Saratov, Samara, Kazan, Ulyanovsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl and Tver. As you move down the stream, every town and factory within it further adds up to the poisoning of the river. The overall pollutant load in 1997 consisted of 1.6 million tonnes of sulphates, 169,500 tonnes of particulate matter and 126,000 tonnes of organic compounds. Volga still remains severally polluted today. In 2001 the river received the following quantities of pollutants: oil products - 2 370 tonnes; suspended matter - 164 540 tonnes; sulphates - 736 460 tonnes and many other components of Mendeleev table.
Furthermore, every year there are some records about accidental oil spills appearing on the news. For instance, in 2008, a 1 kilometer-long oil stain was detected in the Chernoyarsk region of Astrahanska Oblast, which weighted over 32 kg. In July 2009, 2 tons of fuel oil were spilled as a result of a tanker wreck in Samara Oblast, forming a 10 kilometre oil stain on the water’s surface.
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| Volgograd |
Agricultural discharge from the nearby farms adds even more mineral, organic and toxic pollutants, which enter the main stream through the minor tributaries.
Hydroelectric Dams
Construction of hydroelectric power stations was accompanied by creation if over 300 reservoirs, adding up to a total volume of 110 cubic km. The Volga has been transformed from a free-flowing river into a long chain of water reservoirs, which caused water exchange within the drainage basin to slow down by 12 times. Just imagine that before the construction work began the water from the river source reached Volgograd in 50 days, however, by the 1990s it took 400-500 days to pass the same distance.
The slow pace causes toxic pollutants to accumulate in the 8 main reservoirs and to settle on the riverbed - some parts of the river exceed the allowable limit of petroleum byproducts concentration by 100 times. This often trigger a process called «self-pollution», which means that even after the pollutant discharged has been stopped, the pollution continues due to the large amounts of of industrial, agricultural and domestic wastes stored at the bottom of reservoir.
Effects of Pollution
Predictably, such changes in hydrological regime led to decreasing fish populations in the river. Large dams along the river eliminated many spawning grounds of transitory fish such as Caspian lamprey, shads, sturgeons, inconnu as well as worsened the conditions for survival.
Fish are also known to be highly sensitive indicators of aquatic environment and ecosystem health. Pathological changes in fish organs help to determine the toxicity of water contaminants and the potential dangers. The chronic exposure of fish to the numerous toxic substances in the water led to the different types of pathology and dysfunction in their organisms.
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| Medvedev Taking Bath In River Volga |
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