Specialists of the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute of the State Emergency Service and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine came to the conclusion that the Kakhovsky Reservoir no longer exists.
This is reported on the website of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
At the beginning of June, the total area of the Kakhovsky Reservoir was two thousand square kilometers. As of today, it has decreased almost 10 times, i.e. now the area is 261.1 km².
Experts consider June 24 to be the date of the transition from draining the Kakhovsky Reservoir to the beginning of restoration of the natural state of the territory. However, the probability that it will be possible to completely restore the territory is rather small.
“This is caused by such dominant influencing factors as modern climate changes, the complete destruction of the soil cover and the reduction of runoff (as a result of the explosion of the Kakhovskaya HPP), as well as the regulation of the Dnipro River upstream by a system of reservoirs, ponds and canals,” say the scientists.
Yevhen Korzhov, a senior researcher at the Department of Aquatic Bioresources and Aquaculture of the KhSAEU, noted that the Kakhovsky Reservoir no longer exists. He also added that the consequences of the eco-catastrophe, which the occupiers staged, will be felt for years to come.
“Now at the site of the Kakhovsky reservoir, the surface is made of solid, so to speak, cemented organic silt, and the deeper layers leave behind the preserved dead parts of animals and plants that have not decomposed. After every rain, they will be washed away and enter the Dnieper watercourse. They will infect it will be polluted,” says Korzhov.
Since June 20, after the drainage of a part of the reservoir, the territory has gradually become a new source of aerosol emissions into the atmospheric air, which comes as a result of the lifting of dust by the wind.
