EcoLur
EcoLur is publishing ‘ASSESSMENT CRITERIA OF ENVIRONMENTAL SITUATION FOR DETECTING ZONES OF ENVIRONMENTAL EMERGENCY SITUATIONS AND ZONES OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS: METHODOLOGY’ document approved by the Environmental Ministry of the Russian Federation.
This document determines the zones of environmental emergency situations and environmental disasters caused by man-made impact, which is laid down in Russian Federation Law “On Environmental Protection” – ‘’The territories of the Russian Federation, where persistent negative changes occur in environment because of economic or other kind of activities, which threaten population, health, natural ecosystems, genofonds of plants and animals, are recognized as zones of environmental emergency situations. The territories of the Russian Federation, where economic or other type of activities resulted in deep and irreversible changes in environment, which further resulted in the essential deterioration of the population health, disturbance of natural balance,, extinction of natural ecosystem, degradation of flora and fauna, are recognized as zones of environmental disaster,” the law says.
The methodology developed by the Environmental Ministry of Russia is designed for territorial committees on environmental issues of self-government bodies, organizations and professionals involved in the assessment of environmental situations in the area, state environmental expertise, stakeholder ministries and departments and decision-making people. This document lays down a unified approach, which enables classifying the studied areas under unfavorable environmental situation and determining the assessment procedure of the environmental state of the given area.
One of the methodology chapters refers to the exhaustion of surface water resources. It says, “Irrecoverable intake of surface flow has been taken as the main indicator of the degree of exhaustion of water resources. The standard is 10-20% of the environmental flow. Intake twice as much as the standard leads to the environmental emergency situation, while more than twice leads to environmental disasters.”
With this methodology EcoLur has calculated the load of SHPPs on the rivers. Out of the studied 47 rivers, 16 are in environmental emergency situation, while 3 are in environmentally disastrous situation. You can find the methodology here.
June 25, 2014 at 14:12