Investigative monitoring of the Dnipro River basin, pollutant screening

In the Dnipro River basin, the biggest in Ukraine, more than 67,000 pollutants such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals and heavy metals were found in concentrations exceeding EU standards. These are results of the pollutant screening carried out for the first time in the Dnipro River basin as part of the European Union Water Initiative Plus project (EUWI+) at the request of the Ukrainian Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources and the State Agency of Water Resources.

The investigative screening of a wide range of chemical pollutants in surface water and biota samples was conducted in October 2020 at 27 sites in the Dnieper River Basin. Novel methodologies of wide-scope target screening of 2,200 and suspect screening of 65,000 organic pollutants were used for analysis of each sample.

Based on the report, the State Agency of Water Resources has been given a list of 21 specific river-basin substances to include in its surveillance monitoring programme as of 2021.