ASSESSMENT OF THE ANTHROPOGENIC IMPACT OF THE PROTECTED LANDSCAPE ‘CHERNYAEVSKY FOREST’ ON WATERSHEDS

Abstract

Specially protected natural areas play an important role in urban environment. Their important component is small watercourses, the condition of which can be used as an indicator of changes in the ecosystem. The articlepresents an assessment of the ecosystems of stream watershed areas within the protected landscape ‘Chernyaevsky Forest’located in the city of Perm. The route survey has revealed numerous places of littering of the waterside and channels with household and construction waste, wood residues, and various types of garbage. The values of pH, electrical conductivity,temperature, transparency, oxygen concentration, and flow rate were determined at 14 sites on the watercourses. Theobtained results were assessed in four ways: according to the norms of fishery water bodies, according to the sanitaryhygienic norms of recreational water bodies, against background values, and according to the calculated average valuesof the indicators. No exceedances have been found in the studied watercourses in terms of sanitary-hygienic indicatorsand norms of fishery water bodies. As to the background and average values, deviations have been detected at the siteslocated near the boundaries and in areas of most active recreation. Graphs showing dependence of physicochemical indicators on the degree of degradation have been built, according to which the hydrogen indicator corresponds to an increasein the degree of degradation, whereas oxygen concentration and transparency are independent of the degradation degree.In general, the survey has shown that forest ecosystems are subject to anthropogenic impact in the form of trampling ofvegetation and littering of floodplain parts of watercourses. Only in the southern part, where the catchment areas arelocated directly in the zone of residential development, signs of water pollution were noted.