Category: EUROPE

Hi everyone! Since we are talking about Ukraine, it is important to consider the war it is currently going through.

Russian forces have taken control over the Chernobyl power plants as of 25th February 2022. There have already been reports of spikes in radiation readings, possibly from the presence of heavy military vehicles churning up contaminated soil in Chernobyl. Even though the readings are low and don’t pose a danger to the public, there is still the danger of an accidental strike on the concrete shelter that contains the radiation still leaking from the reactor core.

Nevertheless, local scientists have shared their concerns over the future of Chernobyl. This war will most likely affect the continuation of research on radioactivity and the environment in Ukraine.

Furthermore, the Russians have taken control of Europe’s largest nuclear plant in Ukraine, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant. One of the 6 reactors was caught on fire. Despite this, authorities report that radiation levels are not dangerous. Some claim that the plant’s reactors were protected by robust containment structures that were being safely shut down now that the war is culminating. But how protected are they? Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy has shared his fear of the end of Europe and the world, if the nuclear power plant explodes.

We are living in a very scary time. Let us hope that another nuclear disaster does not repeat itself, and that the Ukrainians manage to seek safety.

References:

Heintz, J., Karmanau, Y. & Chernov, M. (2022) Russian Forces Take Control of Europe’s Biggest Nuclear Plant After Shelling It. 4 March. TIME. Available from: https://time.com/6154672/russian-troops-shell-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant/ [Accessed: 8 March 2022].

Lynn, B. (2022) Scientists Concerned about Ukraine War’s Effects on Chernobyl. 5 March. Available from: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/scientists-concerned-about-ukraine-war-s-effects-on-chernobyl/6468933.html [Accessed: 8 March 2022].

Polityuk, P. & Crellin, F. (2022) Ukraine Reports Higher Chernobyl Radiation after Russians Capture Plant. 26 February. Reuters. Available from: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-nuclear-agency-reports-higher-chernobyl-radiation-levels-due-heavy-2022-02-25/ [Accessed: 8 March 2022].

Savage, N. (2022) Russia Took Control of the Chernobyl Nuclear Site in Ukraine. What Does That Mean? 25 February. Available from: https://cen.acs.org/safety/Russia-took-control-Chernobyl-nuclear-site-in-Ukraine-What-does-that-mean/100/web/2022/02 [Accessed: 8 March 2022].

Hi everyone! In today’s second post of the week, I want to start off by discussing the effects of Chernobyl. My group plans to present on the Chernobyl nuclear disasters that happened in 1986. As such, I figured that this post would be a good way for me to refresh what I have found in preparation for the good presentation in the last two weeks of the semester. In case you still don’t know, the Chernobyl disaster happened in the northern part of Ukraine, when it was part of the Soviet Union.

The book “Chernobyl – Catastrophe and Consequences” provides a fundamental overview of the aftermath of the nuclear disaster. I plan to use it when preparing for my group’s presentation. Having briefly read the book, I’ll give you a brief synopsis. The authors, Smith & Beresford, focused on the impacts of radioactivity in both terrestrial and aquatic systems, as well as wildlife. If you are interested in more-than-human geographies, this book would be useful for you! I should stop now before I ramble on about things not related to pollution.

Another relevant book that talks about Chernobyl is “Groundwater Vulnerability: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster” by Faybishenko et al. (2014). This book is more useful for our module because it explains how the nuclear disaster caused water pollution. In short, the accident released radionuclides that contaminated groundwater sources, thus affecting food chains, through the water, soil, and atmosphere. Faybishenko et al. examine the hydrogeological and physico-chemical processes and factors that facilitated the contamination process. In case all of this is too boring for you, you may wish to watch these two videos during your free time. As you can see, forest fires in the Chernobyl region exacerbate pollution levels, because they release whatever substances in the environment into the atmosphere:

 

You can learn more about this by tuning into our group presentation. Now, let’s take a look at the other papers I found.

A paper by Popov et al. (2020) also echoes the sentiments made by Pehchevski in my previous post – Ukraine’s monitoring systems are ineffective and have significant problems. Even if there are data collection and analysis centres, results are rarely stored in paper form. To make matters worse, there are almost no pollution risk assessments on public health.

Meanwhile, Menshov et al.’s (2020) suggest a way to deal with this. In their paper, they posit that they have found a rapid, low cost, non-destructive and efficient technique to monitor soil and assess air quality. This method is called a magnetic analysis. To learn more on how it can be applied, just click on the link in the references below.

Finally, I found a paper that discusses water pollution. Briefly, Nazarov et al. (2007) claim that Ukraine cannot do much to improve water quality, and that if they were to achieve change, they had to change public attitudes and obtain funds abroad to strengthen current systems of pollution control. I wonder if this is the case of many other countries in the Global South too. What do you think?

Up next, a short post to review the Russian-Ukrainian invasion. And next week, Vietnam. See you in the next one! ✿

References

CBS News (2020) Pollution levels soar as wildfires scorch Chernobyl region. 20 April. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6feLH75fnA0 [Accessed: 25 March 2022].

Faybishenko, B., Nicholson, T., Shestopalov, V., Bohuslavsky, A. & Bublias, V. (2014) Groundwater Vulnerability: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. Wiley. Available from: https://agupubs-onlinelibrary-wiley-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/doi/book/10.1002/9781118962220 [Accessed: 25 March 2022].

Global News (2020) New Chernobyl forest fires push pollution levels in Kiev to worst in the world. 17 April. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6YZ_ztLmfk [Accessed: 25 March 2022].

Popov, O., Iatsyshyn, A., Kovach, V., Artemchuk, V., Kameneva, I., Taraduda, D., Sobyna, V., Sokolov, D., Dement, M. & Yatsyshyn, T. (2020) Risk Assessment for the Population of Kyiv, Ukraine as a Result of Atmospheric Air Pollution. Journal of Health and Pollution. 10(25), 1-11. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7058139/ [Accessed: 25 March 2022].

Menshov, O., Spassov, S., Camps, P., Vyzhva, S., Pereira, P., Pastushenko, T. & Demidov, V. (2020) Soil and Dust Magnetism in Semi-Urban Area Truskavets, Ukraine. Environmental Earth Sciences. 79(182), 1-10. Available from: https://link-springer-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/content/pdf/10.1007/s12665-020-08924-5.pdf [Accessed: 25 March 2022].

Nazarov, N., Cook, H. F. & Woodgate, G. (2007) Water Pollution in Ukraine: The Search for Possible Solutions. International Journal of Water Resources Development. 20(2), 205-218. Available from: https://www-tandfonline-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/doi/full/10.1080/0790062042000206110 [Accessed: 25 March 2022].

Smith, J. T. & Beresford, N. A. (2005) Chernobyl – Catastrophe and Consequences. Springer. Available from: https://link-springer-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/book/10.1007%2F3-540-28079-0 [Accessed: 25 March 2022].

Hi everyone! This week, we have Ukraine, the second last country I will be covering in this blog. In this post and the next, I will be covering material before the Russian-Ukrainian invasion. I will cover how the invasion has an effect on pollution patterns in my third post!

Regardless, let’s look at Ukraine’s current air quality. If you look at the image below, there are very few monitoring stations in eastern Europe, as compared to western Europe:

Is this an accurate representation of what pollution is really like in Ukraine? Unfortunately not. Pehchevski explains that there are many reporting errors on emissions data in many of the cities in the country. As a result, locals have had to take it upon themselves to fill up this information gap, by creating a wide network of citizen-installed monitoring stations that measure particular matter in the air. According to the IAMAT, data on Kyiv shows that Ukraine has consistently high levels of air pollution. This is largely due to aged industrial infrastructures, coal mining, vehicle mining, and forest fires.

According to the National Geographic, Mariupol, Ukraine’s port city, is a war zone. It is one of the most polluted cities in Europe. Locals have shared that oftentimes, the smoke that hovers the skies is not only grey, but sometimes orange too, and it emits a very sour smell. As such, many couples who wish to have children have been advised to move elsewhere. In Mariupol, PM2.5 concentration levels can be as much as 50 times higher than the recommended maximum by the World Health Organization. As we have learnt in class and through my previous blogposts, these particulate matter are very dangerous because their tiny size allows them to pass through our bloodstreams and give us cancer, heart diseases, dementia, and all sorts of suffering. Air pollution is so bad, that it can lead to soil contamination, due to the deposition of heavy metals that cause adverse health effects.

Energy generation contributes to as much as 30% of the air pollution in Ukraine. This is because 70% of Ukraine’s primary energy consumption comes from fossil fuels. Fossil fuel plants can emit all kinds of pollutants, but mainly nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxide, and dust, as we have learnt early on in the module’s seminars. Some local scholars have suggested that to prevent people from falling ill from exposure to air pollution, citizens should have a device outside their windows to assess air quality information. Will this really be effective? Even if locals were quick to visit the hospital to get their health conditions assessed, will they be protected from air pollution? It was such a sketchy claim, that I had to add it into my post. What do you think? In the next post, I plan to uncover academic articles on Ukraine’s air pollution, but also some work on Chernobyl. And just to reiterate again, I will account for the Russian-Ukrainian invasion in the post after that!

See you in the next one! ✿

References

Gardiner, B. (2021) Inside a Ukrainian War Zone, Another Fight Rages – for Clean Air. 30 November. National Geographic. Available from: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/inside-a-ukrainian-war-zone-another-fight-ragesfor-clean-air [Accessed: 21 March 2022].

IAMAT (2020) Ukraine General Health Risks: Air Pollution. 16 April. Available from: https://www.iamat.org/country/ukraine/risk/air-pollution#:~:text=In%20accordance%20with%20the%20World,annual%20mean%20concentration%20of%20PM2.&text=Available%20data%20indicates%20that%20Kyiv%20has%20consistently%20high%20levels%20of%20air%20pollution. [Accessed: 21 March 2022].

IQAir (2022) Air Quality in Ukraine. 21 March. Available from: https://www.iqair.com/ukraine [Accessed: 21 March 2022].

Pehchevski, D. (2020) Ukraine’s Dangerous Air Pollution Problems in Desperate Need of Solutions. 19 October. Bankwatch Network. Available from: https://bankwatch.org/blog/ukraine-s-dangerous-air-pollution-problem-in-desperate-need-of-solutions [Accessed: 21 March 2022].

UNDP (2021) Satellite Data Monitors Air Pollution From Space During COVID-19, Helps Inform Policymakers. 12 February. Reliefweb. Available from: https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/satellite-data-monitors-air-pollution-space-during-covid-19-helps-inform-policymakers [Accessed: 21 March 2022].