OSCE Project Co-ordinator helps Ukraine to enhance environmental monitoring to better address conflict-related risks

An online, digital platform for monitoring the environment in conflict-affected areas of eastern Ukraine, and the first baseline assessment of a water monitoring programme in the Siverskyi Donets river basin were presented at an event in Kyiv on 17 December 2018. Both were delivered with the support of the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine and are designed to be used by the country’s Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources and the State Water Agency to track the environmental situation in the region and keep the general public informed.

The online Donbas Environmental Information System, available to the public on the website of the Ministry (http://deis.menr.gov.ua), uses software and equipment provided by the Co-ordinator to gather, systematize, analyse and present information from various state-run monitoring posts in the region. The System will accumulate data on air and water quality, the state of forests and protected areas, and will also produce quarterly summary reports detailing the environmental situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

A separate water monitoring programme has been developed to ensure permanent tracking of the water quality in the Siverskyi Donets river basin.  The OSCE Project Co-ordinator helped to define the locations from where water samples will be collected and the list of parameters to be analysed on a regular basis. To kick-start this programme, the Project Co-ordinator supported the advanced screening of surface and ground water, river sediment and fish that will serve as a baseline for future work. Such an analysis has never been conducted in Ukraine’s river basins before. From next year, Ukraine’s government has made such baseline assessments a requirement for all other river basins in the country.

“The Siverskyi Donets river basin is the main source of water for several million people, and it is at risk from direct and indirect effects of the conflict. At the same time, Ukraine has undertaken environmental reforms that promise to strengthen adherence to international commitments, including those of the OSCE,” said Jeffrey Erlich, Senior Project Officer of the OSCE Project Co-ordinator. “We therefore consider our co-operation with the Ministry of the Environment on providing timely and systematic environmental monitoring and information of critical importance.”

The tools aim to provide reliable data on issues identified by an environmental assessment conducted by the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in 2017 in eastern Ukraine and subsequent recommendations for required priority actions (see the report in English and Ukrainian languages). These activities are part of the Project Co-ordinator’s assistance to the government’s response aimed at mitigating the identified risks to the environment.