DAMAGE TO ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY OF THE DNIEPER RIVER BASIN CAUSED BY AGRICULTURE

Abstract

The transboundary basin of the Dnieper is a diversified complex having a high natural and socio-economic value for three neighboring countries (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine); however, the ecological crisis caused by considerable anthropogenic transformations has led to the deterioration in the functioning of the integrity of the basin’s geohydroecosystem and decrease in the quality of drinking water, and, as a result, to the deterioration of public health. The main reason for the destabilization of the environmental sustainability is agricultural development in the catchment area of the river Dnieper. The area of arable land of the transboundary basin is 283 thousand km², or 55,4% of the total area of the basin, including 206 thousand km² (72,8%) located on the territory of Ukraine. The principles of a basin approach constitute the basis for the objective of studying basin organization, environmental condition and space-time transformation of landscape ecosystems in the catchment area of the Dnieper river. Geo-modeling and identification of the Dnieper sub-basins have been carried out based on the SRTM-90 digital elevation model with the application of the Hydrology tools of Spatial Analyst Tools working module of the ArcGIS 10.1 licensed software product. For a catchment area of 511 thousand km², 776 sub-basins with a size from 1,9 to 22680,2 km² of orders IV-IX were identified. Agricultural development and distribution of woodland within the boundaries of the Dnieper basin are determined based on the data of the National Atlas of Transboundary States and decryption of remote sensing (RS) data using a series of well-calibrated MODIS satellite images. Almost 67,4% of sub-basins of the steppe and forest steppe zones with a total area of about 324,4 km² (63,5%) have less than 20% of woodland, which indicates a low ability to preserve the natural ecological balance in the areas of the middle and lower reaches of the Dnieper. Almost three-fifths of the basin area have completely lost their natural landscape due to the intensive agricultural use. About 416 catchment sub-basins occupying 60,2% of the Dnieper basin area have a strong degree of land fund transformation. Analysis of the share of arable land and forest cover indicates high ecological vulnerability and manifestation of strong land degradation processes at an area of more than 70% of the transboundary basin territory, which leads to a significant disturbance in the functioning of the Dnieper geohydroecosystem. The results obtained will provide an opportunity to substantiate the introduction of specific land and water conservation measures for optimizing the land fund based on basin position-dynamic and adaptive landscaping principles that will create conditions for rational use and rehabilitation of land and water resources of the transboundary Dnieper river basin.