The scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch have developed a biotechnology to clean up the accumulated industrial pollution of lake Pyasino near Norilsk, TASS reports with reference to the head of the SB RAS’s Institute of Biophysics’ experimental hydroecology laboratory head, the Big Norilsk Expedition’s hydrobiological team’s head Mikhail Gladyshev.
“Instead of senseless stocking, we suggest restoring water quality, which from the 1950s to the 1980s fell below the standards for fishery reservoirs. Nobody in the world did this. The Siberian Branch has scientifically substantiated the ways this can be done. After the water quality is restored, it is possible to revive the fish population there”, said Gladyshev.
As the scientist explained, all over the world the restoration of lakes is carried out by means of biological manipulations according to the principle ‘from top to bottom’ along the food chain. Thus, the United States restored the Great Lakes, reservoirs in Western Europe. However, in Taimyr, the process should be organized the other way around – ‘from bottom to top’.
“Nobody in the world has done this on large bodies of water. But the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences has done many times what no one else has done. I hope that we will be the first in the world to carry out large-scale biomanipulation in order to return the lake to its previous state. I am sure that we can use such eco-technologies to restore Arctic resources. But this requires public-private partnership, support from business and government agencies”, concluded Gladyshev.
Earlier, the This Is Taimyr wrote that at the invitation of Nornickel, the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, for the first time in recent years, sent a group of scientists from 14 institutes to Taimyr to conduct a large-scale study of the territory. The main points of the Big Norilsk expedition were the basins of the Pyasina, Norilka, Ambarnaya rivers, and the Pyasino lake was also studied. During August, specialists collected samples of soil, plants and bottom sediments, after which work began in the laboratories.
