The most important environmental-economic problem of the development of the city of Kyiv is restructuring of the national economy, improvement of the performance of social production on retention of the present quality of natural environments.
Protection of the atmospheric air
The analysis of the ecological situation in Kyiv revealed that the number of organized sources of industrial emissions of harmful agents into the atmosphere had been increasing continuously between 1990-1996. While in 1990 there was 223 enterprises that discharged pollutants into the atmosphere, this number increased to 354 in 1996; the numbers of sources of discharges were 17,650 and 24,465, respectively.
The number of pollutants discharged by stationary sources of industrial emission decreased due to the reduction of the volume of production in between 1990 and 1996. At the same time, the number of pollutants discharged into the atmosphere by power-producing enterprises increased and continues to increase. This is attributable to the expanded use of kinds of fuel such as high-sulfur mazut, brown coal, hard coal, etc.
Over the period between 1990-1996, the number of motor transport vehicles doubled. According to preliminary estimates, the number of motor vehicles will increase 1.5 times by 2000, and will continue to increase. It is, however, expected that the number of pollutants discharged into the atmosphere by movable transport vehicles, will decrease due to neutralizers, use of more environmentally friendly and ecologically pure fuels and lubricants and improvement of transport vehicles.
Protection of water resources and neutralization of industrial and consumer wastes
One major source of pollution of internal water reservoirs and regional watershed of the river of Dnieper is flowing drains. The surface waters from the territory of Kyiv are disposed of by a network of sewers through 41 points of drainage. Out of this number, only 5 points of drainage are equipped with decontaminating facilities. They are not able to provide a sufficient quality of decontamination of torrential rain waters; the quality of water within the city is ever changed for the worse.
The situation in the city in terms of keeping and recycling of wastes of industrial production and consumption is extremely unsatisfactory. Technologies for recycling of mud of galvanic production and mud of washing motor transport vehicles have not been developed and enterprises engaged in this activity are lacking. The problem of recycling of steel cord tires has not been solved. The city needs a garbage disposal plant to be built.
The overall volume of waters discharged to natural water reservoirs in 1996 was 847.3 million cubic meters, including 34.8 million cubic meters of contaminated water, which is up 166.7 million cubic meters and 180.2 million cubic meters, respectively compared to 1990.
There are three independent sources supplying water to the city: the river of Dnieper, the river and Desna, and underground waters. This provides reliability of water supply. Nearly 1.5-1.6 million cubic meters of water is supplied daily, including 800,000 cubic meters of water from the Desna, 400,000 cubic meters from the Dnieper, and 300,000 to 350,000 cubic meters of artesian water. There are 369 artesian wells and 34 pumping stations in operation. The overall capacity of waterworks is 2,120,000 cubic meters per day.
Protection of flora and fauna
Natural factors of protection and neutralization of the man-caused impact on the living environment include forests, parks, water reservoirs. Therefore, for the environmental situation in the city to improve, existing parks and gardens must be preserved, ecological efficiency of territories of parks and gardens must be improved, including public parks, green plantations in dwelling districts, streets, lawns, shrubbery, etc.
All forests and green plantations of the city are under the control of the state communal association KyivZelenBud and belong to three forest parks; they are under care of rayon enterprises engaged in landscaping.
The development of landscaping enterprises proceeds in accordance with a comprehensive plan of development of the "green zone" of the city of Kyiv. There are two major directions of its development: creation of new plantations and landscaping reconstruction of the existing plantations.
In general, as a developed urban-industrial agglomeration,
the city of Kyiv is sufficiently provided with biological resources
such as forests, urban green plantations, waters, lawn formations,
etc. To a significant extent, this makes up for the lack of technical
means of environmental protection.