The Yenisei River in Terms of Sustainable Water Management

详细

One of the world’s largest rivers, Yenisei, is considered in terms of sustainable water management, in accordance with the Water Strategy of the Russian Federation into 2020. For that purpose, the UN indicators of water management and the regional indicators (developed by the authors previously) were used as well as the hydrobiological indicators which they can be regarded as the measure of ecosystem stability as they reflect the response of hydrobionts to the anthropogenic effect. The system of indicators thus generated includes four criteria: hydrographic characteristics, the socioeconomic state of water management, waste water characteristics, the surface water quality, and biological characteristics. Each of the criteria is represented by several indicators whose contents are filled with statistical material for the period 1993–2015, by numerical estimates made by these authors, and by expedition–based and published data. It is shown that the water discharge within the Yenisei basin is ineffective: the technical status of the water supply systems is in serious decay, the proportion of recycled and reused water is low, and the water consumption indicator per unit of gross domestic product is high. Because of the decline of the production level, freshwater intake and waste water discharge have decreased; however, this has not led to any improvement in surface water quality. The chemical and biological methods of water quality assessment for the Yenisei river have shown similar results corresponding to the “contaminated” and “dirty” classes. Channel storage of the Yenisei changed its thermal regime, resulting in structural rearrangements of biological communities and triggering a decrease in stability of the aquatic ecosystem.