In Ukraine, the fruit and vegetable harvest in the Kherson region has practically been lost due to the floods caused by dam explosions.
Iryna Herzon, associate professor of agroecology at the University of Helsinki, estimates that the effects of floods caused by dam explosions in Ukraine can be really extensive.
Herzon himself comes from the floodplain and knows not only the area but also its agriculture very well.
The floodwaters spread to the fields pollute the land. Herzon reminds that the flood river sediments contain a lot of heavy metals and other industrial residues even from Soviet times.
– The flood causes tens, even hundreds of years of damage to people’s health and food production, Herzon states.
It is also a big ecological damage.
– Ukrainian experts, ecologists write that fifty protected areas have now been destroyed, and many rare species are on the verge of extinction because of this, Herzon says.
The collapse of the dam is a big loss for agriculture because the artificial lake served as the source of water for the irrigation canals of three provinces, more than 1,000 kilometers long.
Iryna Herzon’s interview is in its entirety in Areena: