Kakhovka dam destruction devastates 10,000 hectares of farmland in Ukraine's Kherson region
Kherson region flooding after Kakhovka dam destruction by Russian troops on June 6, 2023. Photo: Ukraine's Ministry of Agricultural Policy
About 10,000 hectares of agricultural land on the right bank of Ukraine's southern Kherson region was flooded due to the Russian destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, and the volume is several times larger in the occupied territories.
This initial assessment was announced by the press service of Ukraine's Ministry of Agricultural Policy, Rubryka reports.
According to the department, the disaster will also stop the water supply of 31 field irrigation systems in the central Dnipropetrovsk, southern Kherson, and southeastern Zaporizhzhia regions.
The ministry notes that in 2021, these systems provided irrigation for 584,00 hectares.
This year, only 13 irrigation systems worked on the right bank of the Dnieper. Now without a water source, will be:
- 94% of irrigation systems in the Kherson region,
- 74% – in the Zaporizhzhia region,
- 30% – in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
As the founder of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) Agrocenter and the vice-president for KSE economic education, Oleh Nivievskyi emphasized that up to 500,000 hectares were under irrigation in Ukraine.
Kherson region flooding after Kakhovka dam destruction by Russian troops on June 6, 2023. Photo: Ukraine's Ministry of Agricultural Policy
"Approximately 200,000 hectares were left without irrigation due to detonation," he said.
The KSE expert also adds that this figure considers the occupied territories.
Nivievsky clarified that the Inhulets River irrigation system network has not been working for the last year, and the South Crimean Canal stopped working even earlier.
The ministry says that this will lead to the fields in the south of Ukraine likely turning into a desert next year. Without the Kakhovska Reservoir, sources of drinking water supply for settlements will suffer.
The consequences for fisheries are critical. The death of fish, both young and adults, is already recorded. The spawning period has just ended; the spawn will dry out in the wet due to the drop in the water levels. The fauna of the reservoir carried away by the flow of water into the floodplains formed below the dam of the Kakhovka HPP will also die.
Another problem will be the entry and death of freshwater fish and other biological resources in the salty waters of the Black Sea. The Black Sea fauna can also die from the massive influx of fresh water.
Losses to the fishing industry from the death of only grown fish can reach 95,000 tons or about 4 billion hryvnias. According to preliminary calculations, losses from losing all biological resources will amount to UAH 10.5 billion.
"Such consequences of water devastation will continue for several years, even if the bed of the Kakhovka reservoir is filled shortly," the department noted.
As Rubryka wrote, as of June 6, 2023, it is impossible to establish the actual state of a large part of the reclamation systems in the south of the country because they are located in temporarily occupied territories, and there is no access to them.
