Translated material
Baikal monitoring under threat
Baikal researchers are concerned about the plans to reduce the budget by 10%, voiced by representatives of the Government of the Russian Federation. Reducing financing will make it impossible to conduct long -term environmental monitoring of Lake Baikal, which has been performed for more than half a century by the forces of the Irkutsk State University. About this, a three-hobby was told by the doct. Biol. Sciences, Vedas. scientific. sore. Laboratory of General Hydrobiology of the Research Institute of Biology of the ISU Professor Evgeny Zilov .
The recent discussion about the degree of “catastrophic” changes on Lake Baikal, unfortunately, often goes into the field of populism instead of a balanced expert analysis with the involvement of serious scientific data. The key importance for understanding what is still happening on the lake is of the environmental monitoring program and the collected data on the “health” of Baikal.
A unique project of long-term environmental monitoring of Lake Baikal [1] has been implemented since February 1945 by the Research Institute of Biology of the Irkutsk State University. Project supervisor Professor Yevgeny Anatolyevich Zilov notes that regular sampling is performed every 7-10 days in the water column at the so -called pelagic stationary station No. 1. It is located in South Baikal, opposite the village of Big Cats, at a distance of 2.7 km from the shore, above a depth of 900 m.
The data obtained during the processing of the fees of phyto- and zooplankton, as well as the relevant information about the most important physicochemical properties of water are entered into a single database.
“Point No. 1” is a truly unique project, this is the first and longest similar study. It is included in the Book of Records of Russia as the longest project of regular environmental monitoring in the history of science. Last year, the term of continuous monitoring exceeded 70 years. The closest foreign “competitors” are inferior both in terms of monitoring and the intensity of fees. For example, long -term research of Lake Michigan began only in 1957, the monitoring program of Lake Kineret - in 1967, and similar research on Lake Geneva has been conducted since 1974. All the data collected in 70 years has been entered into a single database, the copyright holder of the Irkutsk State University.
Information about the state of planktonic communities is the main indicator of the state of the entire ecosystem of Lake Baikal. The importance and importance of the data obtained is already confirmed by the fact that among the specialists studying Baikal, the project immediately (in 1945) received the unofficial name “Point No. 1”, which was so fixed for it.
The database of the Baikal Plankton, collected over the years of continuous observation, is the most valuable object of intellectual property, which has a huge scientific and applied value. According to the analysis of this array of data, one can judge the nature and dynamics of changes in the entire Pelagiali ecosystem (water thickness) of Lake Baikal, its basic physical and chemical indicators, and actually judge the state of the “health of the lake”.
At the same time, Baikal himself can serve as a kind of indicator of the state of the whole earth. If the plankton of the giant lake Baikal, this ancient and conservative system, changes due to global processes (temperature shifts, the presence of pollutants in the atmosphere, growth of ultraviolet radiation, etc.), then this suggests that the changes are not only real, but they are large -scale and are planetary.
However, now, due to the constantly cut budget, the continuation of the program is very problematic. Last year, a similar 10 percent reduction in the budget forced the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation to significantly reduce financing of universities within the so-called basic part of state assignment to science, from which monitoring is financed. Monitoring funds (already insufficient) were reduced by almost 30%. Even then, the question arose about the suspension of the program.
We experienced a year thanks to the efforts of the director of the Research Institute of Biology of the ISU Professor Maxim Anatolyevich Timofeev and with the support of the university rector. Additional extrabudgetary funds were found to maintain the program. However, after voiced plans to re -reduce the budget, hands are simply dropped, scientists are forced to freeze the project. It must be understood that narrow (and mostly noble) experts who have been processing planktonic samples and their analysis can not “switch to another job” for years, and then simply return to the project upon receipt of funds. And the value of monitoring data is lost in case of violation of the regularity and continuity of observations. Thus, the “freezing” of the continuous observation system even for one (and most likely not one) crisis year, in fact, puts an end to the project.
It is not possible to get funds from scientific funds, whether it is a RFF or RNF - the release of scientific publications is too small, especially in terms of the number of employees involved. The specificity of monitoring work is that with large labor costs and financial costs for their organization, researchers publish only a small number of works. However, these are very important articles! Moreover, they often have a large number of co -authors, and the individual contribution of the project researchers in them is lost.
So, the recent article “A Global Database of Lake Surface Temperatures Collected by in Situ and Satellite Methods From 1985-2009”, published in Scientifc Data (Publishing House of Nature Publishing Group ) [2] , contains a large amount of data obtained as part of the monitoring project, and has 74 co -authors, of which only two participants in our Baikal project itself. Now we are writing another article on the current state of the ancient lakes of the world in a consortium with more than 30 international research groups. The importance of such work is difficult to underestimate, but in literal science indicators, monitoring will always lose.
Monitoring has accumulated data for decades. Such programs were not taken into account when planning a new system of financing university science, requiring scientists of great individual publication activity.
As a result, what do we have at the beginning of this year? In fact, the Baikal monitoring program, which was launched more than half a century ago, surviving the war, stagnation, perestroika and the “dashing” nineties, turned out to be actual bankrupt after reaching its 70th birthday.
Moreover, this happens precisely at the time when the topic of environmental problems and changes observed in Baikal is actively discussed in the leading world media and at professional venues. Many publications and speeches indicate critical changes (fluctuations) of water level in Baikal, the influence of global climatic changes on the lake biota, an increase in the receipt of industrial and domestic pollution, about the processes of eutrification of the lake and the mass growth of spirogyra algae, as well as many other processes observed in Baikal.
It should also be remembered that the current problems marked for the lake can only be “flowers” so far, while the “berries” expect us ahead - due to the planned acceleration of the economic and tourist development of the Baikal region. It is worth mentioning the project for the construction of the Dam of the hydroelectric power station on the Selenga River, the main tributary of the lake - a project, the consequences of which can be really catastrophic on the ecosystem of the lake.
An adequate assessment of passing and alleged environmental changes, the adoption of any political and economic decisions regarding Baikal without environmental monitoring data is simply impossible. Without it, you can cause a lot of harm to a unique lake.
Evtrophy is a “fertilizer” with a reservoir with nutrients, such as phosphorus, nitrogen, easily oxidized organic substances, causing an increase in the development of algae.
Photos provided by the author of the article