Expert opinion: the ecosystem in the Black Sea will be restored a few years after the emergency with fuel oil

The experience of observing and the scientific assessment of the consequences of the 2007 accident in the Kerch Strait showed that the ecosystems of the injured areas of the water area and the coastal-worn zone were able to recover to conditions close to the pre-author level of diversity and vitality in a couple of years. For several years after the 2007 accident, the IO RAS conducted a study of ecosystem changes in the affected areas. Specialists of the IO RAS had the opportunity to compare the data they received with those that were collected and analyzed by the specialists of Azniirch and other regional scientific organizations during the periods preceding the accidents— TASS said the leading researcher at the Ecology Laboratory of the Coastal Donay communities of the Institute of Oceanology named after P.P. Shirshov of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IO RAS) Philip Sapozhnikov.

According to him, to say exactly how significant the consequences of new spills are and what their influence on the bottom and Pelagic, that is, the components of ecosystems located in the water column, is possible only after comprehensive scientific research. In particular, they will be engaged in specialists from the IO RAS, who plan an expedition to the potentially contaminated zone of the Black Sea in March.

Consequences [разливов 2007 и 2024 годов] It can already be compared because both spills influenced the beaches and sand shallow water: in 2007-in the Sea of ​​Azov and the Kerch Strait, in 2024-2025-in the Black and Azov Seas and the Strait connecting them. The scale of the spill of oil products in 2024 and their distribution in sections of the coastal zone in 2024-2025 are more significant than in 2007— said Sapozhnikov.

He noted that in 2007, the spill occurred directly in the scope of the Strait. Then, petroleum products were assigned to the east shores of the Sea of ​​Azov, they were taken to a braid of a flash at the northern exit from the strait, they accumulated on shallow water east of the braid — that is, closer to the Krasnodar coast. Also, the spilled substances were applied to the Taman Bay. As a result, to one degree or another, the bottom ecosystems of the coastal-mass zones were violated, part of the fuel oil went into reed thickets, a large number of birds were injured.

Ecosystem restoration

The head of the Department of Aquatic biological resources and aquaculture of Kuban State University Alexei Abramchuk, in turn, noted that the Kerch Strait, at the entrance to which tankers crash, is located on the path of migration of many marine species.

The ecosystems of the Black and Azov Seas are closely connected, and through the strait connecting them different species move to winter or after it, go to spawning or in search of food, as well as for other reasons. However, the activity of marine inhabitants increases with the cessation of winter-spring storms and depends on temperature changes-the fodder base increases with the warming of the sea.

As Abramchuk noted, at this stage it is important to collect the entire fuel oil as soon as possible — if you have time until the water temperature increases, after which the activity of marine inhabitants will increase, then the damage to the ecosystems of both the Black and the Sea of ​​Azov will be minimized.

It is worth noting that there are no threats of disappearance from the biological diversity of the region of populations of any living organisms— he emphasized.

Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Honorary President of the Crimean Academy of Sciences Viktor Tarasenko notes that over the next five to six years, as a result of storms and warming in the summer, oil products that settled to the bottom of the Black Sea after the accident in 2007 were washed to the shore in the summer. .

In the end, all nature itself restored. These are enormous possibilities of the ecosystem — to overdo the technogenic stress that occurs in connection with such accidents, He added.

About the spill of fuel oil

When spilling fuel oil from tankers crashed at the end of 2024, pollution touched the scope of the strait and both seas, oil products were thrown to the Black Sea coast in the Krasnodar Territory, Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as to the Azov coast, including in the Zaporizhzhya region — that is, On the shore opposite to the entrance to the Kerch Strait. For two months, about 200 thousand tons of fuel oil and soil contaminated with oil products were collected, thousands of birds were washed and transferred to rehabilitation.

source: TASS