Assessment of suitability of the Dniester River's water for drinking water supply

Abstract

The Dniester is a transboundary river between Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova. It is the second longest river in Ukraine and the ninth in Europe. From its source to a town of Staryi Sambir, the Dniester flows through the Carpathian Mountains, then across the flat territory of Ukraine and Moldova.

The Dniester Basin extends across seven regions in southwestern Ukraine (Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, Chernivtsi and Odesa Regions). A small area of the river in its upper reaches is located in Poland. The basin's shape is a very elongated oval that is curved in the middle, about 700 km long with an average width of 120 km.

As it flows into the Black Sea, the Dniester River forms the Dniester estuary in Odesa region (between Ovidiopol and Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi districts). The estuary area of the Dniester River is a complex landscape system at the sea-river-land contact.

 Drinking water is an important factor determining a person's health. Due to the intensive development of industry, agriculture and utility services, the number of pollutants that enter the environment and worsen the quality of drinking water in Ukraine keeps increasing. This increases the risk of toxic and infectious diseases spread among the population that consumes such low-quality water. That is why solving the problem of drinking water monitoring and assessment of its quality is a pressing task requiring urgent action.

The article examines the quality of water for drinking needs at the water intake site of the Dniester River, a town of Biliaivka, for 2018-2022. Water quality assessment was carried out according to DSTU 4808: 2007 based on average and worst values. The methodology covers 80 indicators and, in accordance with sanitary legislation, is divided into seven separate groups (blocks). According to hygienic standards, the quality of river water is considered suitable for use if it belongs to quality classes 1-3. In this research, the analysis was carried out according to 23 indicators included in three groups, so the assessment is considered as tentative: Group I - organoleptic indicators (chromaticity, turbidity); Group II - general sanitary indicators (dry residue (mineralization), sulfates, chlorides, magnesium, alkalinity, hydrogen index, ammonium nitrogen, nitrite nitrogen, nitrate nitrogen, phosphate phosphorus, dissolved oxygen, bichromate oxidation (COD), BSK₅); Group VII – toxicological parameters (total iron, manganese, chromium (VI), zinc, petroleum products, synthetic surface active agents (surfactants), volatile phenols).

It was determined that, according to the average values, the water quality of the Dniester at the water intake site is characterized as "good", which means it has clean water of acceptable quality. As for the worst indicators, the water was assessed as transitional in quality from "good" (clean) to "satisfactory" (slightly polluted).