Snow pollution in the water area of the world heritage lake

Abstract

The monitoring of the snow cover of the water area and the surrounding territory of Lake Baikal showed that the pollution of the area caused by the local sources spreads dozens of kilometers depending on the prevailing wind direction and reaches regional proportions in the central zone of Baikal’s basin. Air and snow pollution of the lake’s water area has been detected near the littoral residential zones and in the estuary of the Selenga River. The research also showed a small increase in the regional pollution for the past 5years (by a factor of 1,1 - 2 depending on a pollutant). However, according to the data gathered for the last 15years, the pollution decreased by a factor of two at the end of the 1990s and at the beginning of the 2000s due to the decline in manufacturing output.