Current ecological state of small tributaries of the Ivankovo reservoir

Conclusions

Small rivers reflect to a considerable extent the general situation in the water-protection zone of the Ivankovo reservoir and make their negative contribution to worsening of water quality. Being the most vulnerable link of the ecosystem, they require some correction (if only from positions not requiring large material expenditures), namely:

• banning plowing of lands up to the water’s edge and creating small forest strips in the near-channel part of rivers;

• banning the application of fertilizer on snow in water-protection zones, since in this case a considerable amount of it enters directly into the rivers;

• monitoring the observance by farm and poultry plant workers of the regime of sanitary zones of water objects, reference being to the impermissibility of the washout of wastes from the territories of these enterprises directly into rivers;

• banning the grazing of large cattle herds on low and high floodplains, which owing to their territorial limitedness and instability to loads do not withstand such pressure and are brought out of an equilibrium state.

Assessment of the ecological state of small rivers and their drainage basins requires further development and refinement. But the preliminary results already permit concluding the need to reduce the level of anthropogenic loads on certain stretches of the basin right now and the need to legalize the status of sanitary zones for small rivers.

To improve the water quality of small rivers of the drainage basin of the Ivankovo reservoir it is necessary first of all to elevate the ecological knowledgeability of the population living in the territory of the basin as well as to fulfill the scientifically founded standards of anthropogenic loads with respect to various types of use of resources. Furthermore, it is necessary to carry out water reclamation works on numerous stretches, which has not been done heretofore: clearing and deepening river channels and clogged springs; removal and utilization of trash and prohibiting the entry of wastewaters from the territories of agricultural and industrial enterprises directly into water objects (embanking the banks on hazardous stretches, creation of wastewater collectors, forest reclamation, etc.).