Monitoring of suspended matter in the Dnipro River within Zaporizhzhia city, the main trends of 2022

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The article presents the results of monitoring observations on the temporal distribution of the qualitative and quantitative components of the Dnipro River suspended matter within Zaporizhzhia city. The research on the territory of this powerful industrial center of Ukraine with a developed metallurgical complex was carried out from 2015 up to 2019 and from the end of 2021 to the present time. The main task of the research was determining the distribution of iron and a group of heavy metals of anthropogenic origin in the composition of the river suspension, and identifying the connections of their concentrations and forms with the natural conditions of the region. Sedimentary matter from the water flows of Dnipro River within research area was sampled once per month using sedimentary traps developed by authors. The methods of electron microscopy (with microprobe analysis) and laser diffraction analysis were used to study the suspension granulometric and chemical composition in the Center for Shared Use of Scientific Equipment of the IGS NASU. SEM studies were carried using scanning electron microscope SEM JEOL-6490 LV (Jeol Ltd., Japan) with an energy dispersive spectrometer of the X-ray microanalysis system INCA Energy+ (Oxford Instruments plc., Great Britain). Particle size analysis was determined using the laser particle size analyzer Mastersizer 2000 with a Hydro 2000S wet dispersion module (Malvern Ins. Ltd, UK).The study results of the samples taken in the first year of hostilities in Ukraine revealed a number of features which were not observed in the previous series of studies. Those peculiarities are the following ones: reduction in the intensity of sedimentary matter accumulation; decrease of technogenic components in the suspension content (in particular, the amount of ferrous metals, changes in the ratio of condensed and dispersed iron particles of silt size, as well as the component composition of fragments of alloys of non-ferrous and ferrous metals). The obtained results may indicate the sensitivity of the component composition of the suspension to changes in the external environment in general, as well as the significant impact of the anthropogenic component on the distribution of iron in suspended matter.