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Physical and Geographical Characteristics
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2.1. Physical and Geographical Characteristics
The Dnipro Basin is a diverse economic region of environmental and socio-economic importance. Not only does it contain natural resources of social value (e.g. water, land and forest resources) but it is also a valuable asset for various economic developments, medium and small businesses. It sustains major urban centres, and a large number of small and medium-size towns (see the Dnipro Basin Passport in Annex 2).
The Dnipro River extends into the territories of three Eastern European countries, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus and Ukraine. It is the third largest European transboundary watercourse after the Danube and the Volga, draining a basin of 511,000 km2, and the fourth longest river in Europe (2,200 km), next to the Ural, the Volga and the Danube. 19.8% of the Dnipro Basin is within the territory of the Russian Federation, 22.9% in the Republic of Belarus, and 57.3% is in Ukraine (Figure 2.1).
The river system of the Dnipro Basin has been regulated with a large number of reservoirs, channels, conduits, ponds, dams and locks/gates. Overall, 564 reservoirs have been constructed in the Basin with a total area of 775.6 km2 and a capacity of 46.2 km3. The flow of the Middle and Lower Dnipro (from the Pripyat River inflow to the town of Kakhovka) is regulated by a chain of huge reservoirs (the Kyiv, Kremenchug, Dniprodzerzhinsk, Dniprovsky and Kakhovka reservoirs – the latter, along with the Kremenchug reservoir, are among the largest water reservoirs in the world). Very little of the natural river channel remains, being restricted to a short length downstream of Dniprodzerzhinsk.
The total projected groundwater resource available in the Basin is approximately 24 km3, with over 13 km3 being hydraulically isolated from the surface water flow.
The land resource of the Dnipro Basin has been intensively used for a number of different purposes. Three fifths of the Basin area have lost their original natural landscape features as a result of highly intensive land use. About 50% of the Basin area is occupied by agricultural land.
Figure 2.1 Map of the Dnipro Basin
Forests occupy about 33.8% of the total Basin area, being mainly concentrated in the upper part of the basin and less dominant in the lower where forest cover is limited to relatively small artificial plantations and wind break strips surrounding agricultural fields.
The mineral resource base of the upper part of the Basin (within the Russian Federation) is rather scarce and limited to relatively small deposits of low-grade coal, peat, and locally used construction materials. At the same time, the rich and diverse mineral resource base in the Belorussian and Ukrainian parts of the Dnipro Basin have driven the large-scale development of mining and processing industries that dominate these economies.
Large-scale land drainage schemes, covering about 4.5-5 million ha of the Basin territory, have contributed dramatically to the environmental degradation. Massive drainage works, along with extensive peat extraction activities, have ravaged surrounding areas. As a result, the total area of devastated and dried-up land in the Polesie region has reached about 6 million ha. The impact of drainage activities on water resources has been no less dramatic, leading to major alterations of the hydrographic network, changes in the morphometric characteristics of water bodies and their catchments, modification of flow regime, and a fall in the water table of 1.0-1.5 m. Every year, about 1,500,000 tonnes of mineral substances and up to 700,000 of aggressive soluble organic compounds enter the Dnipro River with surface runoff from drained land, and this pollution load is further carried with river flow into the Black Sea. The rate of drying-up is so great that it can lead to progressive expansion of devastated spots to the extent where they merge and form vast degraded zones possessing the features of semi-desert.. Clearly, this represents a threat of a major transboundary/regional disaster for the whole of Central Europe.
The Dnipro Basin is a unique Eastern European ecosystem sustaining a rich biological diversity. There are more than 35 nature reserves and protected areas in the Dnipro Basin that enjoy the national status and occupy only about 1.6% (8,100 km2) of the catchment’s area. Clearly, the existing nature reserve capacity is not adequate to ensure full protection and conservation of plant and animal species, both native and migratory ones.
