Document Actions
Introduction
Up one level
INTRODUCTION
The Dnipro basin environment management and monitoring system that is being created within the IDRC project requires objective information on the condition of water ecosystems. A key element of the system is the background monitoring block introduced to gather information on the condition of water bodies and waterways where anthropogenic impact is minimal. Background data must provide a necessary basis for assessing anthropogenic transformation of water ecosystems in the Dnipro basin.
Water bodies and waterways on protected natural territories fit background monitoring requirements the most. The Berezina Biosphere Reserve (BBR) was selected to test the principles and methods of background monitoring. The choice of BBR was based on a number of factors, the most important of which was that here anthropogenic impact was the smallest among all territories in Belarus. It was also chosen because the reserve had a permanent station of the Republican Environmental Monitoring Center (REMC), which could serve as a basis for the background monitoring system.
The project’s goal is to develop an integrated monitoring system for estimating the state and biodiversity of water ecosystems on protected natural territories in the Dnipro basin based on hydrobiological and radioecological monitoring and to create a system of background monitoring of water ecosystems.
A one-year monitoring cycle has produced materials that characterize the contribution of the aerial component in the pollution of BBR ecosystems, radiation environment in the reserve, hydrochemical characteristics of the studied waterways, species diversity and structure of the plankton, periphyton and benthos associations of model biotopes and ecosystems, and levels of productive and destructive processes in BBR’s waterways. Higher water plants as well as the fauna and flora of the riverside zone have been studied. Bioinduction methods that are widely used in hydrobiological research and their applicability in a background monitoring system have been assessed. A concept of functioning of the system of background monitoring of water ecosystems has been developed.
This report summarizes key project results. The full materials obtained during the project are listed in the annex and the collective study “Integrated ecological monitoring of the waterways of the Berezina Biosphere Reserve”, which is being prepared for printing.
Different sections of this report have been prepared by the following authors: A.P. Ostapenia (Introduction, Conclusion and Section 1), D.D. Stavrovsky (Section 2), G.M. Tischikov (Section 5, Item 6.3), V.P. Semenchenko (Section 7), I.I. Matvienko (Section 5), G.M. Germenchuk (Section 4), B.B. Kozeruk (Section 3), N.A. Zhdanova (Section 5), М. S. Golovko (Section 5), V.M. Natarov (Section 2), А. О. Lukashuk (Section 2), T.M. Mikheieva (Item 6.1.1), Y.V. Lukyanova (Item 6.1.1), R. А. Derengovskaya (Item 6.2), L.V. Nikitina (Items 6.1.3 and 6.2), R.Z. Kovalevskaya (Item 6.1.4), Т. А. Makarevich (подраздел 6.2), M.D. Moroz (Item 6.3), Y.G. Giginiak (Item 6.3), V.V. Vezhnovets (Item 6.1.2), G.V. Vynayev (Item 6.4).
