Development of a methodological approach for determination of environmental risks of water bodies pollution across industrially developed territories (as exemplified by the rivers of City of Kharkiv)

Abstract

The study’s relevance consists in the need to determine the prospects for achieving a good environmental condition of Ukrainian water bodies in accordance with the Water Framework Directive of the European Union on establishing the framework of the Community's activities in the field of water policies. The question on ability to achieve the set goals is related to assessment of the environmental risks of surface water pollution by chemical substances. The purpose of the research is to develop new approaches to identification of the risks of surface rivers' water pollution across industrially developed territories. The study was carried out using the data of hydrochemical observations of the Lopan and the Kharkiv rivers. The rivers are located inside City of Kharkiv and exposed to pollution both by industrial discharges and municipal wastes. The work is based on application of a probabilistic approach aimed at determining quantitative indicators of the environmental risks using statistical distribution of such indicators. The scientific novelty consists in offering a method to determine modified water pollution indices and pollution risk indicators specifically for biogenic substances and heavy metals. This allows evaluating the prospects of ensuring a good environmental condition despite surface water pollution from various sources. The research results in presenting a method of building a scale for qualitative and quantitative assessment of environmental risks and their consequences. It relies upon semantical match of the gradations of aquatic environment quality indicators and chemical contamination risk indicators. The study that covers the Kharkiv and the Lopan rivers showed a close relationship between environmental risk indicators and water pollution indices. The revealed dependencies made it possible to harmonize the semantic gradation of aquatic environment quality scales and risk scales. Practical application of the developed methodology implies only calculation of the modified index of pollution by heavy metals or biogenic substances based on the observation data and establishing a possible risk zone and a corresponding environmental situation according to the environmental risk scale. The proposed approaches are recommended for use when determining environmental pollution risks across industrially developed territories of different countries.