Integrated Management of Water Resources in the Polesie Region

Background

The problems of the natural resource rational use, the harmonization of the relations between man and nature, and natural environment protection are among the most urgent problems of today, affecting every inhabitant of the planet, since the future of all mankind depends on the solution of these problems. In Europe, Ukraine is one of the countries with few local water resources, and these resources are distributed very irregularly. In Ukraine, the efficiency of water resource use is extremely low, and the water capacity of the gross domestic product, on the contrary, is too high.

Today the strategic goal of ecologically safe water resource usage is to ensure the priority of the environmental protection functions over the economic ones, the rational use of surface and underground waters, and the wide introduction of water-saving technologies in all sectors of the economy. The implementation of this goal should be carried out based on the development and observance of the water legislature, which is an integral part of the environmental legislation and is directed towards the regulation of the relations between the subjects of the economic activity to strengthen the responsibility of legal and physical entities to preserve and maintain water resources and water facilities in a proper condition, as well as to ensure the interest of the enterprises, institutions, organizations, and citizens in the conservation of water resources, the implementation of water-saving technologies, the development, and production of low water-consuming technological equipment (Pavlov, Stashuk, 2013)

The strategic goal of the state's water management policy is sustainable water usage with constant economic development.

The priority directions for the implementation of the principles of sustainable water use are as follows:

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  providing the population and economic sectors of Ukraine with high-quality drinking water in the required amount and appropriate quality;

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  restoration and preservation of a sustainable ecological state in river basins;

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  restoration and protection of water bodies, reproduction of water resources;

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  justification of new groundwater intakes and expansion of their usage for drinking water supply;

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  artificial replenishment of underground water reserves;

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  prevention and elimination of the consequences of harmful effects of floods, flooding, and water erosion;

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  protection and rational use of water resources and restoration of small rivers;

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  increasing the management level of reservoir operation modes;

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  exercising safety control over the water management facilities and systems;

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  reduction of production water consumption, water losses, improvement of drinking water quality;

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  increasing the structure reliability for the engineering protection of the territories against the harmful effects of water;

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  the creation of an economic mechanism for water usage based on the market conditions of the stimulation of the rational usage of water resources and the sufficient financing of water management and environmental protection activities;

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  improvement of the system of environmental regulation and standardization in the field of water resource use;

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  formation of a rational regional structure of the economy and a water management complex based on the water factor.

As it is not possible to quickly solve water-ecological problems, public policy should be based on the principles of defining strategic goals, on which all water-ecological activities are oriented.

The national priorities for environmental protection and the rational use of natural resources include: