Out of the 1,000 kilometers that the Dnipro River flows through Ukraine, 900 kilometers are reservoirs. Thousands of towns and villages have been flooded, and dozens of Dnipro’s tributaries are constantly pumped by pumps, negating the perceived benefits of hydroelectric power generation. Approximately 7,000 square kilometers of land (an area the size of Cyprus, for comparison) are submerged underwater. The artificial “seas” erode the riverbanks each year, creating enormous cracks, and hundreds of meters fall into the water. Starting from July, the water blooms, smells, and every summer, fish die en masse in this acidic environment.
There are no fish migration corridors on the dams, which has significantly affected biodiversity. I have a dream that all the seas of the Dnipro cascade will be partially drained (of course, not in the same way as the Kakhovka Sea is currently), allowing the rapids and shallows to reappear, so that we can see and hear the roaring of the mighty Dnipro once again.
