Biological Indication of Pollution of the Ural River Based on the Results of a Study of Its Zoobenthos in Summer 2022

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study of zoobenthos of the Ural River in an area from the town of Verkhneuralsk to the city of Orenburg (about 1000 km) with sampling upstream and downstream of sources of anthropogenic impact: large cities, metallurgical plants, treatment facilities (TFs), and reservoirs. The degree of pollution was estimated using the Shannon and EPT indices, as well as the Woodiwiss index, an indicator that partially takes into account the first two indices. It is shown that the selected parameters decrease downstream of the sources of anthropogenic impact, thereby reflecting a decrease in the species diversity of benthic biocenoses and a decrease in the number of indicator species sensitive to pollution. Small streams are particularly affected; pools are subject to greater transformations than riffles. An integrated indicator of water quality based on biological parameters is proposed. It was used to rank all studied areas by the degree of pollution. It is shown that ten of the 23 studied river areas are assigned to the 1st class of water quality (conventionally clean areas), seven areas to the 2nd class (weakly polluted areas), three areas to the 4th class (dirty areas), and three areas to the 5th class (extremely dirty areas). This indicates that, despite multiple sources of pollution, the Ural River has a high self-purification capacity and most of the studied areas are quite clean and favorable for the habitation of benthic invertebrates.