Development of V.I. Vernadsky’s Ideas about Natural Waters: Biogeochemical Processes and Water Quality

Abstract

The paper analyzes the effect of ever increasing anthropogenic impacts on land waters and analyzes V.I. Vernadsky’s works on natural waters and their significance for assessing modern biogeochemical processes. The paper demonstrates the scale of the influx of chemical elements and compounds into the modern biosphere as a result of the emission of greenhouse gases, nitrogen and phosphorus dissemination, acid-forming gases, and metals. Key changes in some regions and the biosphere as a whole are highlighted. The consequences of anthropogenically induced processes are illustrated by the example of a remote Arctic region, the northern Kola Peninsula in Russia: the effects of climate warming and the acidification and eutrophication of the waters and their enrichment in metals. In the wake of V.I. Vernadsky’s ideas about the role of land waters in supporting the life necessities of the planet’s human population, approaches to assessing water quality from the standpoint of the ecological paradigm are described.