Geoecologist Alexander Sheshnyov together with a team of specialists and students is working on projects that in the future may serve to improve the environmental recovery of the Volga. The research is supported by grants from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Russian Science Foundation, the Council for Grants of the President of the Russian Federation. Some areas are being developed in interdisciplinary collaboration with hydrologists, biologists, and historians, part of experimental work is organised with colleagues from academic and other institutions.
Head of the Laboratory of Geoecology of the Faculty of Geology, SSU, Alexander Sheshnyov has received the President's grant for the second time. For the previous two years, he studied the quality of water that enters the Volga from the territories of the cities of Volsk and Saratov. The new grant made it possible to expand the geography of research to Kamyshin, located in the north of the Volgograd region, on the border with our region, was added to the project. Bottom sediments of ravines are also investigated - a kind of drainage areas covering a particular area of the city. Alas, almost all of them are polluted, and water along with bottom sediments is carried away (especially now, in spring) directly into the Volga.
Many of us, when talking about our hometown, mention objects of architecture or culture that have become landmarks. At the same time, the territory as such completely falls out of the field of vision of the townspeople, accustomed to the facade perception of space. But this is what surrounds and fills the city, and where, in modern realities, developers are trying to remove communication lines. The territory, or natural component, together with the socio-economic block, represent the urban human environment.
Alexander Sheshnyov says, ‘In the laboratory of geoecology of the Geological Faculty, we are primarily engaged in the study of the geological environment in places that have already been developed by man. These are studies of the geological environment in the areas where mineral deposits are located, underground gas storages, the state of the environment during operation and after the liquidation of production, the impact of landfills on the state of soils, and many other issues.
In recent years, together with senior researcher Mikhail Reshetnikov and graduate students Sergei Shkodin and Dler Majid, we have carried out detailed ecological and geochemical studies on the territory of Saratov, as well as many settlements in the region – Engels, Balakov, Volsk, Krasnyi Kut, Balashov, Stepnoe, Petrovsk, Khvalynsk, and others.
The most detailed studies are, of course, devoted to Saratov. The territory of our city is geologically very complicated. As a result of geological processes, the variety of relief that we see every day has arisen. The most important feature of the relief of Saratov is urban ravines, the problem of using which is not new and goes back centuries. Some of the ravines have been filled up, some have radically changed.
The problems of developing the Volga coastline have been accumulating since the 19th century. Industrial zones along the banks of the river have been forming for decades. Today they pose serious problems for the expansion of the embankment. Together with fellow historians, we analyzed the spread of cholera in Saratov at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries and it turned out that spatially the centers of increased incidence were tied to the most unsanitary areas along the city ravines. Now the choice of a strategy for involving ravines into the city's fabric is complicated by the development of landslides on their sides and multi-meter strata of technogenic deposits.
The ravines have a catchment area that covers a particular area of the city. Within its limits, underground waters are unloaded by springs, a layer of water is formed during snow melting and from rainfall. Then all this is sent to the channel of the city ravines, and already along them - to the Volgograd reservoir. It is clear that the waters from the developed residential and industrial areas are often saturated with pollutants, but in the runoff of the watercourses of the ravines, a direct flow of wastewater is also revealed. A striking example is the Glebuchev ravine, enclosed more than half a century ago in a concrete collector. Today, no one will name the exact number of illegal and unaccounted connections to it.
In recent years, in the laboratory, we have studied the quality of the runoff flowing through the watercourses of urban ravines into the Volgograd reservoir from the territory of Saratov and Volsk. Now we are completing work on studying the removal of solid sediments along the channels of erosional complexes, expanding the geography of research to the territory of the city of Kamyshin.’
Hardly anyone needs to be convinced how important it is to study the influence of the Volga cities on our main river: the reservoir is both an object of water supply, a resting place, and a natural ecosystem of aquatic organisms. The most important task, and the dream of several generations of Saratov residents, is to turn the city towards the Volga. But the implementation of such a colossal task in practice is limited by the predatory development of the urban area for construction over the course of tens of years, instead of striving to ensure the ecological comfort of the population.
Today, within the framework of federal programs, measures are being taken to create a comfortable urban environment and improve the health of the Volga. In the area of the new embankment, bank protection structures with a projected recreation area are being erected, and in the international competition for projects for the integrated development of territories in the central part of Saratov held in 2020–2021, there is also a Glebuchev ravine.
‘The topic of my research, continues Alexander Sergeevich, is related to the study of how urban ravines function. How they can be used rationally. This was also the topic of my Ph.D. thesis, in the development of which today I am working on new aspects related to the spread of pollution along the ravines. In addition to theoretical understanding of the problem, these studies are also of practical importance, since the coastal strip of the Volga is the most important part of the urban space. The urban area should open to the Volga, we want to see the river, relax there. And runoff through ravines is a direct and obvious obstacle to our desires.
The ravines themselves as relief forms are objects of research by geomorphologists. We, in addition to the classical methods, use hydro- and geochemical methods, analyze the history of the development of urban space. We study how the runoff from the city territory is formed, its composition, how it affects the water quality in the Volgograd reservoir.
Now we have thoroughly investigated 12 ravines in Saratov, through which sewage is sent to the Volga throughout the year - from industrial sites, from highways and from the private sector. Analyzing their composition, we have identified an individual feature for Saratov. It would seem that in summer the quality of water in streams should be worse, because in spring, when the snow melts, water consumption increases and polluted runoffs are diluted. It turned out that the opposite is true - in spring the quality of the water running into the Volga is much worse, and this is explained by the accumulation of pollutants in the snow cover in winter.
We share the data obtained with the authorized bodies of city administrations, with Rosprirodnadzor and other structures, and interact with relevant authorities.
Natural and man-made objects that we are studying should be identified as a source of impact on the state of the water area and the Volga coastline in our region, and the city should equip these facilities and create systems for treating surface runoff from the city's territory.
The development of environmentally optimal methods of using the territory that can prevent possible negative impact on human health and biota in the Volgograd reservoir is the main task of our project.’
Text by Tamara Korneva
Photos by Gennadii Savkin, Alexander Sheshnyov’s personal archive
Translated by Lyudmila Yefremova
