Investigation of a small river ecosystem to calculate the risk of quantitative and qualitative depletion of watercourse

Abstract

Abstract Economic development of catchment areas, where the flow of large and small rivers forms, leads to irreversible environmental changes and the disappearance of small rivers. Flowing through the areas of residential and industrial development of cities, towns and other settlements, they are exposed to the most intense anthropogenic pollution, resulting in a sharp deterioration of water quality and depletion of water resources. The aim of this study is to test the methodology of integrated assessment of watercourse pollution according to hydrochemical indicators. When calculating the risk of quantitative depletion of water resources it is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of territory use: arable land, woodiness, artificially created areas, etc. The method has been tested in alignments of small rivers of the Republic of Bashkortostan (Russia). At a complex estimation quantitative and qualitative risks of the small river depletion for the long-term period have been defined. The hydrological scheme of zoning on size of geoecological risk of qualitative and quantitative depletion of water resources of studied alignments of small rivers, in a zone of influence of the mining and processing enterprise is drawn up.