Dropping water levels in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region have exposed fishing nets and aquatic plant roots along the banks of the Dnipro River.
Dmytro Smoliyenko/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
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Dmytro Smoliyenko/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Dropping water levels in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region have exposed fishing nets and aquatic plant roots along the banks of the Dnipro River.
Dmytro Smoliyenko/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Russia appears to be draining a huge reservoir in Ukraine, endangering drinking water, agricultural production and safety at Europe’s largest nuclear plant, according to satellite data obtained by NPR.
Since the morning of November 2022, water from the Kakhovka Reservoir, in southern Ukraine, has flowed through floodgates at a critical hydroelectric power plant operated by Russian forces. As a result, satellite data shows that the water level in the reservoir has plummeted to the bottom in three decades. Separate images from the commercial companies Planet and Maxar show water pouring through the gates, and the banks emerging into a giant reservoir due to the speed of the falling water.
In doubt, drinking water for hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, irrigation of almost half a million acres of arable land and the cooling system at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant. Late last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it was aware of the potential danger posed by lowering the water level in the reservoir.
“Although declining water levels do not pose an immediate threat to nuclear safety and security, it could become a source of concern if allowed to continue,” IAEA Director General Rafael M. Grossi said in a statement.
A major water source
Kakhovka’s reservoir is a huge, man-made lake roughly the size of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. It is the last body of water in a network of reservoirs along the Dnipro River in Ukraine. Since the 1950s, it has been used to provide drinking and irrigation water to the southern Ukrainian parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. A long canal leading from the pool also supplies the Russian-occupied Chersonese.
A Russian soldier walks through space at the Hydroelectric station at Kakhovka on May 20, 2022, in a photo taken during a trip organized by the Russian Ministry of Defense. A group of blue cranes, which control the mother’s hair, can be seen in the background.
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A Russian soldier walks through space at the Hydroelectric station at Kakhovka on May 20, 2022, in a photo taken during a trip organized by the Russian Ministry of Defense. A group of blue cranes, which control the mother’s hair, can be seen in the background.
AP
The reservoir is needed to provide water for the otherwise arable farmland in the southern part of the region, according to Brian Kuns, a geographer at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, who has worked in southern Ukraine. A network of canals leading from the reservoir irrigates about 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) of arable land that usually grows sunflowers, corn and vegetables. “Location is very important,” Kuns said.
The reservoir was also a critical source of water for the Crimean Peninsula, supplied by a 403-kilometer (250-mile) canal. After Russia invaded Chersonese in 2014, Ukraine diverted water from the canal, leaving the peninsula dry. Following Russia’s major invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, one of the goals was to restore Crimea’s water supply, and Russia made it necessary to divert summer water from the reservoirs.
Russia appears to have spent several months using the Kakhovka Reservoir to fill a network of reservoirs in Crimea, according to David Helms, a secret meteorologist with decades of experience working for the US federal government, most recently at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. “There are 23 tanks; they are lying down,” he said.
Opening the Floodgates
Then on November 11, 2012, when Ukrainian forces were advancing, Russian forces attacked the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Dam, which controls the water level of the reservoir.
At first, some feared the explosion would damage the dam and spill water from the pool, but Helms says the road was extinguished, leaving the dam’s gates intact.
However, immediately after the detonation, it appears that Russian forces deliberately used two cranes on the Russian side of the dam to open additional floodgates, allowing water to rush out of the pool.
The results of the statement. Radar altimetry data shows the level of the current channel at 14 meters, about 2 meters below its normal height. Since December, the pool’s water level has plummeted to its lowest level in 30 years of satellite observation.
The land emerges as the water levels fall
A February 7 statement on Telegram from the local government said that if the level falls below 13.2 meters, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant’s cooling system, which relies on water from the reservoir, will be at risk. The statement said that Ukrhydroenergo, Ukraine’s hydroelectric company, believes the mission was carried out deliberately by the Russians.
A statement from the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration also warned that several cities that rely on the reservoir, including Enerhodar, Melitopol and Berdyansk, may face water shortages, although it should be noted that all three are currently under Russian occupation, so little is known about their water supply.
Dark Motivations
Helms believes that the deliberate mission is another way for Russia to hurt Ukraine. Crimea’s reservoirs are already full, he says, in this way Russia could disrupt Ukraine’s economy, which depends heavily on agricultural exports.
“It’s knocking off the power grid,” he said.
But Kuns is less certain of Russia’s intentions. It shows that most of the affected agricultural areas are in the parts of Ukraine targeted by Russia. “The only thing that seems strange is that they are making scorched earth into a field that they publicly profess to want to preserve,” he said.
A canal that supplied water from mainland Ukraine to Crimea, which Ukraine annexed after Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014, is now dug up and flowing, in this photo from June 2012.
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A canal that supplied water from mainland Ukraine to Crimea, which Ukraine annexed after Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014, is now dug up and flowing, in this photo from June 2012.
Claire Harbage/NPR
In its statement, the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration suggested that the purpose of draining the reservoir is to partially dilute the area from the southern motherland, in an effort to keep Ukrainian forces from crossing the Dnipro River. Officials have stated that Ukrhydroenergo believes that residents of Russia “opened the hair station, fearing the development of the Ukrainian military.”
For now there is little, except as it draws water, he speculates. “I don’t know what the plan is,” Kuns said. “But it’s very annoying.”
With additional reporting by NPR’s Sarah Knight, Brin Winterbottom.
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