Dropping water levels in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine have exposed fishing nets and roots of aquatic plants along the shoreline of the Dnipro river.
Dmytro Smoliyenko/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Russia appears to be draining an enormous reservoir in Ukraine, imperiling drinking water, agricultural production and safety at Europe’s largest nuclear plant, according to satellite data obtained by NPR.
Since early November 2022, water has been gushing out of the Kakhovka Reservoir, in Southern Ukraine, through sluice gates at a critical hydroelectric power plant controlled by Russian forces. As a result, satellite data shows that the water level at the reservoir has plummeted to its lowest point in three decades. Separate images provided by the commercial companies Planet and Maxar show water pouring through the gates, and shoreline along the giant reservoir emerging as a result of the rapidly falling water levels.
At stake is drinking water for hundreds of thousands of residents, irrigation for nearly half-a-million acres of farmland, and the cooling system at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Late last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it was aware of the potential risk posed by dropping water levels at the reservoir.
“Even though the decreased water level does not pose an immediate threat to nuclear safety and security, it may become a source of concern if it is allowed to continue,” the IAEA’s director General Rafael M. Grossi said in a statement.
A major water source
The Kakhovka Reservoir is a massive, man-made lake roughly the size of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. It is the final body of water in a network of reservoirs along Ukraine’s Dnipro River. Since the 1950s, it has been used to provide drinking and irrigation water to parts of Ukraine’s southern districts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. A lengthy canal leading from the reservoir also supplies Russian-occupied Crimea.
The reservoir is essential to supplying water to otherwise arid farmland in the southern part of the country, according to Brian Kuns, a geographer at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences who has studied farming in southern Ukraine. A network of canals leading from the reservoir irrigates roughly 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) of farmland that is used to grow sunflowers, grain and vegetables. “It’s very important locally,” Kuns says.
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Article URL : https://www.npr.org/2023/02/10/1155761686/russia-is-draining-a-massive-ukrainian-reservoir-endangering-a-nuclear-plant