Is it necessary to restore the Kakhovka reservoir: pros and cons

What is the problem? 

The floodwaters receded after the Kakhovka disaster, but Ukraine will be dealing with the consequences for years to come. In addition to thousands of tons of agricultural products in the south of Ukraine being destroyed due to flooding, many areas were left without irrigation. This will significantly impact the farmers of the right bank of the Kherson region, who only this year made their first attempts to recover from the occupation. The farmers of the Mykolayiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions face the same problem.

The man-made disaster stopped the water supply of 31 irrigation systems: 30% of the fields of the Dnipropetrovsk region, 94% of the Kherson region, and 74% of the Zaporizhzhia region.

The bottom of the Kakhovka reservoir. Photo: Sky NewsIf nothing is done, the territory of the former reservoir may turn into a desert, and Ukraine will have to face the changing climate of the region. In this case, farmers would be left without any opportunity to work.

Considering these factors, the government began to act quickly and has already approved an experimental project to restore the Kakhovka HPP. However, many opponents of such a decision give logical counter arguments in favor of not fixing it. Rubryka looks at whether it is still worth restoring the hydroelectric power plant.

What is the solution?

EastFruit's analysts noted that water from the now-defunct irrigation system made it possible to grow up to 80% of all vegetables in Ukraine, and a significant percentage of fruit and grapes. Practically all heat-loving fruits of Ukraine were grown using irrigation from the Kakhovka Reservoir. The main capacities of summer greenhouses, which provide the population of Ukraine and Moldova with affordable tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, and peppers were also located along the branches of the Kakhovka irrigation system.

This can be calculated in monetary terms. According to Taras Vysotskyi, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, it is impossible to grow vegetables without a source of water supply. Grain and oil crops will be cultivated according to an extensive model with low yields.

Oleksandr Kharchenko, the director of the Energy Research Center, asserts that Kakhovka HPP is essential to providing Ukraine not just water but electricity because it allows regulating consumption  of clean energy that does not cause pollution.Kharchenko also emphasizes that without the reservoir, large enterprises of the Dnipropetrovsk region will not be able to operate even at 50% of their capacity.

At the same time, Yevhen Ignatenko, the head of the Shipping Administration, talks about the problems for Ukrainian shipping due to the lack of the Kakhovka hydroelectric hub.

"The Kakhovka lock was the outermost Dnipro lock that let all ships out to the open sea. The gates for Ukrainian exports have been closed to us," he explained, adding that rebuilding Kakhovka HPP should become one of the examples of a private-public partnership, or some other option of involving the private sector in this initiative.

Arguments against the restoration of HPP

Hydrobiologist Yurii Kvach expresses his opinion that the construction of the Kakhovka HPP was a great crime of the Soviet authorities, as it was a disaster for the area where the reservoir was created: ecology, cultural, and archaeological heritage was destroyed, and it harmed society — hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homes.

The dam of the Kakhovka HPP is almost in ruins, now completely underwater, and would  need to be rebuilt practically from scratch. "Until the technical project documentation is prepared and a contractor tender is held, more than one year will pass. The complete reconstruction of the Kakhovka Reservoir will take ten years, at least. All this time, people have to live. It is necessary to readjust to new realities," Kvach told Rubryka.

According to Olha Gelevera, assistant professor in the department of geography and geoecology of the Volodymyr Vynnychenko Central Ukrainian State University named after, it is not necessary to restore the reservoir because it is possible to solve a large number of problems with water supply in the region with the help of other, more budget-friendly methods.

Kryvyi Rih is already restoring its water supply thanks to water from the Kremenchuk Reservoir flowing through the Inhulets River. A water pipeline is being built from Zaporizhzhia to Marhanets, Nikopol, and Pokrov. The cooling pond of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is located on the bank of the Dnipro River, so it is not so difficult to supply water there. New technologies have been developed in the past 70 years that can be applied to restore the water supply, and there are even advantages here because updating and strengthening the water supply system is an essential countermeasure against threats.

Without the Kakhovka Reservoir, the Dnipro's water level will not decrease. The average evaporation loss from the Kakhovka Reservoir was 1.81 cubic kilometers per year. That means the annual flow of the Dnipro will increase by this volume of water. Five Dnipro reservoirs regulate seasonal flow fluctuations. During the summer baseflow, they must move the water downstream when the water level reaches its lowest point.

As for irrigation, according to Gelevera, the main problem is rising water from the Dnipro streambed to a height of about 10 to 20 meters to the height of the existing canals and aqueducts, in particular, the North Crimean one. A solution could be to install modern pumping systems and possibly a network of small hydro-technical structures, like ponds.

"The rivers that flowed through the steppe canals led to waterlogging and secondary soil salinization. Modern irrigation technologies, like drip irrigation, require less water and make it possible to develop intensive agriculture, like vegetables and horticulture, which is more profitable than growing grain crops," Gelevera explains.

At the same time, it is not worth rebuilding hydroelectric power stations just to get electricity. The additional 2,000 square kilometers freed from water can be used to install solar stations. "Solar power plants on the lands of the former reservoir can produce the necessary electricity," Gelevera believes.

Another alternative to the destroyed dam is the construction of dams along the Dnipro, which will allow the water to be raised at the dam without flooding the land. "Let Ukrhydroenergo include this in its estimate. Its head, Ihor Syrota, said that $1 billion and five years are needed to restore the Kakhovka HPP. Perhaps this will be enough for the construction of protective dams. There are also river hydroelectric power plants, for which dams are not necessary. Unfortunately, the small hydroelectricity that destroys Ukrainian rivers is included in the green tariff, which allows them to make significant profits at the expense of Ukrainians' pockets. As of the beginning of 2022, the share of hydroelectric power plants and gas power plants in the structure of electricity production in Ukraine was only 6.7%," the scientist contends.

Ukraine's Kherson region is an arid area with an annual rainfall of less than 45 mm, meaning that in summer, in hot weather, the bare bottom of the reservoir dries up very quickly. Sandstorms stirring up impurities from the sediments on the river bottom are a very real danger for the region. However, Gelevera assures that with an annual rainfall of about 400 mm, a desert will not form. The territory of the former reservoir will be overgrown with weeds in the first years. People should help this process by seeding/planting these lands with vegetation, for example, with the help of drones. In the future, on the part of these lands, it is possible to grow, for example, energy willow, if groundwater is available close by.

It was on the site of the Kakhovka Reservoir that once stood the largest natural forest in the steppe zone of Ukraine — the Great Meadow. In the Ukrainian language, the term "meadow" comes from "a flooded forest." Oleksiy Vasylyuk, a biologist and the head of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group, believes that the drying of the reservoir means an opportunity to restore the Great Meadow. This will make a convenient springboard for implementing state plans to increase forestry in Ukraine and to accomplish these tasks naturally without harming other ecosystems. According to Vasylyuk, some plots will be naturally overgrown with meadows.

The decision to sow the bottom is already being implemented. In the Kamianska Sich National Nature Park,which is located in the Kherson region along the shore of the former Kakhovka Reservoir, employees sowed the bare part of the reservoir with the seeds of steppe plants, which were collected in the field for a whole week. The first sprouts appeared a few weeks ago, and now scientists hope their experience will be used by other communities adjacent to the former reservoir.

Experts from the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group believe this solution could work – they visited the Oskil Reservoir after Russian troops destroyed its dam, which caused almost complete shallowing of the reservoir and observed that the floodplains are now being restored there – the bottom is overgrown with local plants, and threatened birds have even reappeared.

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An additional bonus on the condition that the Kakhovka Reservoir will not be restored will be the possibility of reconstruction of traditionally sacred places for Ukrainians — elements of the Great Meadow and Sich: Tomakivska, Bazavlutska, Mykytynska, Chortomlynska, Nova Sich. An archaeological examination of this area is underway. As for logistical issues, a bridge can be built across the river channel, and the Dnipro channel can be deepened for the passage of ships.

In the US and the EU, thousands of dams have already been dismantled, and they have had a positive experience of drying reservoirs there. In the US, the emphasis is on the restoration of natural streams. The process was launched in 1912 when more than 200 dams were dismantled.

In Europe, 325 dams were dismantled in 2022 alone. For this purpose, a special AMBER project even aims to map all barriers in European rivers.

"Now we should not blindly ask the question 'how to restore the reservoir' – instead we need to look for a solution, how to quickly and rationally meet the existing needs of the state and the population, using modern technologies and solutions," Vasylyuk told Rubryka.

Whether to build a new hydroelectric power plan again, or to turn to more modern practices requires a more detailed analysis. For now, Ukraine has an opportunity to effectively launch this process.