Scientists have found that causes the greatest harm to lake Baikal
IRKUTSK, 14 Sep — RIA Novosti. Scientists at the Baikal water forum on Thursday assessed the current ecological state of lake Baikal, according to them, the anthropogenic factor is incomparable with the negative impact on the lake have forest fires.
It was reported earlier that Baikal environmental international water forum started in Irkutsk. Its main task, the participants see the solution of problems of lake Baikal, primarily through the study and application of advanced water treatment technologies.
Review reports on the topic of modern ecological state of lake Baikal on the forum were doing in different sections from two scientists, but their opinion coincided in the main — harm lake forest fires, can’t compare today to any other negative factor.
According to the President of the Interregional Union of Designers, the Professor of the Moscow state University of civil engineering Eugene Pupyrev, human activity cannot be viewed as a serious threat to the lake ecosystem, because in 100 years the population on its banks has not actually increased.
“According to 1916 we had on the shores of lake Baikal, the population of 76 thousand people. The figure is now 84 thousand. To say that the Baikal is the overpopulation, this is wrong,” said the Professor. However, he noted that from the point of view of anthropogenic impacts the most significant negative factors are the poor treatment facilities and uncontrolled migration — tourists, whose number during two summer months only on the island reaches about 300 thousand. However, in comparison with the effects of forest fires, according to the scientist, this threat to the ecosystem is not as a significant.
The same conclusions reached by scientists of the Limnological Institute of SB RAS. According to the Director of academics, doctor of geological-mineralogical Sciences Andrey Fedotov, the harmful substances deposited on the surface of the water in the large-scale fires in the forests surrounding Baikal, cause the lake is incomparably greater harm than the activities of people. Scientists have noted changes in species composition of flora and fauna of the lake. In particular, the mass death of Baikal sponges, they are discouraged as a matter of fact. As the declining population of another endemic — Cisco.