Analysis of water-ecological problems of Khmelnytsk region

Abstract

At the present stage, in the conditions of growing scale of anthropogenic impact on water resources, shortage of quality drinking water and climate change, priority measures should be their rational use and comprehensive conservation. The article analyzes the environmental problems of surface waters of river basins, analyzed the existing potential of water resources and the state of water use, qualitative and quantitative indicators of surface waters of river basins of the Dnieper, Southern Bug and Dniester within Khmelnytsky region. The main problems of water resources of the region are highlighted and proposals for their effective use are formulated. A feature of the Khmelnytsky region is its location in three river basins – the rivers Dniester, Southern Bug and Dnieper. The main share of water intake in the region comes from surface objects, and s unevenly distributed throughout its territory. The study shows that in the sectoral structure of general use of water in Khmelnytsky region, the largest consumer is industry (58.6 %), and among industries electricity sector is the main and largest consumer. The main environmental problem of the region is the pollution of surface water bodies with untreated and insufficiently treated return water. In the territory of Khmelnytsky region, 80 water users discharge return water into water bodies. The average annual concentrations of manganese (2–6 times), copper (4–7 times) and nitrites (2–5 times) were exceeded in all control samples from water bodies of Khmelnytsky region. There is also an increase in the total amount of discharges of pollutants, including petroleum products, suspended solids, sulfates, total iron, and copper. In addition to pollution, the problem is the current structure of land within river basins. Excessive plowing is one of the main negative factors that contributes to the deterioration of the water regime and leads to pollution of water bodies. Within the Khmelnytsky region, arable land is the dominant form of land use, their share is 50–70 %. Restoration of the quality of water bodies involves the implementation of measures to reduce the environmental risk of deterioration based on the analysis of the impact of anthropogenic factors and a set of water protection measures.