Rating Water Quality in Sevastopol Bay by the Fluxes of Pollutant Deposition in Bottom Sediments

Abstract

Sevastopol Bay is used as an example for the development of criteria for rating anthropogenic impact by elimination fluxes from the water area of post-Chernobyl (⁹⁰Sr, ¹³⁷Cs, ^239,240Pu) and natural (²¹⁰Pо) radionuclides, as well as mercury and organochlorine compounds. The differentiation of the bay water area into zones with different biogeochemical conditions and the balance approach to interpreting field observation data were used to assess the conditioning capacity of Sevastopol Bay ecosystem for conservative radioactive and chemical substances by elimination fluxes of pollutants into aqueous depot, which is the open part of the Black Sea and into the geological depot, i.e., its bottom sediment stratum.