In the early hours of June 6, 2023, two large explosions reverberated across cities and small towns located on the banks of the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine. The Russian military had reportedly set off multiple bombs, destroying the three-kilometer-long Kakhovka Dam and draining its massive reservoir into nearby settlements.
Water from the dam flooded the plains, killing hundreds of civilians and countless livestock, destroying farms, and displacing the residents of more than 37,000 homes.
The bombing made headlines around the world. However, it’s the long-term impact of the attack on the local biodiversity that has scientists and experts concerned. In the weeks following the explosion, researchers from Ukrainian ministries and independent organizations carried out several assessments as best they could to the backdrop of the war.
They found that the attack had flooded about 60,000 hectares (230 square miles) of forest in at least four national parks, threatening an estimated population of 20,000 animals and 10,000 birds.
“Almost all aquatic vegetation had died, and much of the marine life had disappeared, including mollusks,” says Serhiiy Skoryk, director of Kamianska Sich National Park in Kherson, one of the regions affected. “Those that survived moved downstream,” says the scientist-turned-freedom fighter.
The deluge also dislodged many landmines in the heavy conflict region, moving them downstream into farms and residential areas.
The researchers found an equally deadly if less obvious threat: Industrial pollutants previously captured in the reservoir’s sediments had contaminated the flood zones and the Black Sea.
Another report by the Ukrainian Scientific Center for Marine Ecology, published just months after the destruction of the dam, also showed high evidence of pollution in the Black Sea, including heavy metals such as copper, zinc, and arsenic compounds.
“All that water from the reservoir contains contaminant particles, along with carcasses of the animals that died during the flood, most of which ended in the sea, which is now polluted,” says Oleksiy Vasyliuk, an environmental scientist from Ukraine who has been documenting the ecological impact of the war.
One of the hardest hit groups of species was mussels, “filter feeders” who help purify water. With populations of these animals significantly reduced, Vasyliuk expresses worry that these pollutants could enter the human food chain.
The war has made an already bad situation for many species even worse. “Even before the war, the ecology of Ukraine was endangered, but the Russian invasion attacks have caused serious threats to Ukrainian biodiversity,” says Anastasia Drapaliuk, project coordinator at Tellus Conservation in Ukraine.
In a paper for the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group, Drapaliuk and other experts noted that wildlife across 5,000 square kilometers (1,930 square miles) faced catastrophic effects from the flood, including rare species of birds, mammals, reptiles, and insects. “Populations of some species were dealt a possibly greater blow in one day on June 6 than in the last 100 years,” they wrote.
But amidst the destruction, something unexpected has emerged.
Baby Forests
“Despite the challenges, our colleagues have been making regular expeditions to the affected area,” says Vasyliuk. “Three months after the attack they were shocked to find vegetation and forests in part of the reservoir that was left dry after the dam collapse.” They documented a young willow forest making its way through the dry cracked soil left behind by the floods. “It was unbelievable; no one expected to see the greenery they found, or that such a thing could happen amidst these tragic events,” he adds, the thrill of the discovering still evident in his voice.
Where they feared desertification, a thick forest of largely willow trees (Salix alba), some reaching as high as six meters, now occupies about 150,000 hectares (930 square miles) of land that had once been covered by the reservoir.
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