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Conclusions and Suggestions
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13. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
The results of the hydro-chemical research into the water quality of the Dnipro river, Prypyat river and their tributaries mostly correspond to the results of the hydro-biological studies. The especially dangerously polluted areas (as to the hydro-chemical and hydro-biological parameters) are mostly the same. They are the Svisloch river down stream Minsk city, the Dnipro river down stream Mohylyov town and Rechitza town, the Prypyat river down stream Mozyr town, and the Sozh river down stream Homel town.
For two weeks of the expedition period, the water quality of the Dnipro basin (as a whole) was characterized as rather satisfactory. However, in bottom sediments, there were registered the heavy metal pollution and the radio-active contamination. The hydro-biological parameters of bottom sediments are also unsatisfactory. Therefore we can conclude that, in other seasons, due to intensive hydraulic processes and considerable flow of polluting substances, washed from the municipal and agricultural territories, at certain parts of the Dnipro river, Prypyat river and their tributaries, the water quality can essentially worsen. So, the water protection activities are urgent without any doubts.
The polluting substances and pollution parameters of first priority (which values were registered, during the expeditionary period, as exceeding the permissible standards established for the water objects of fish farming) are: ammonium nitrogen, nitrite nitrogen, phosphates, the SURFACTANTS, oil products, the BOD and heavy metals (manganese, zinc, iron, copper, mercury). While developing the monitoring net of the National Environmental Monitoring System (NEMS) and control over municipal and industrial discharges, the special attention should be paid to testing the above-mentioned ingredients.
The contents of chlorides, sulphates, sodium, calcium, magnesium, potassium, silicon, nitrate nitrogen, aluminium and cadmium in surface waters of the Dnipro basin (at all studied posts) did not exceed the permissible standards. The contents of the above-mentioned substances in bottom sediments are also not excessive. Therefore, while developing the NEMS and conducting new expeditionary studies, tests on these substances can be carried out selectively.
The existing monitoring posts are not sufficient for representative assessments of trans-boundary pollution. That is why, we suggest to organize additional monitoring posts of the boundary river parts, to conduct joint (not only with Ukraine, but with Russia too) expeditionary researches, to agree the methods of water quality analysis, used by different countries.
As to approximate evaluation, carried out for specific conditions of October 2000, the loading - related to the human activity (on the polluting substances of first priority) and produced by Russia and Ukraine - can be compared to the same loading produced by Belarus Republic as 23…74 and 47…71%, correspondingly.
For more reliable assessments of trans-boundary pollution, especially in spring and summer, we need not only to conduct additional international expeditions, as was mentioned above, but to carry out profound analyses of all information about environmental conditions of the Dnipro river and its tributaries, which has been collected and processed by institutions of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine for many years. That is why, it would be useful to establish an inter-state system of automatized water-environmental information exchange.
