The Crimean Basin Water Authority is the budget non-profit organization, which belongs to the Ukrainian State Committee for Water Management. The Crimean BAW is responsible for management of and control over use, protection and restoration of water resources in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the Sevastopol city.

Legal address: Simferopol, str.Kyivskaya 77 / 4 

In fulfilling their tasks, BWA interacts with the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Sevastopol State Administration, local authorities, the National Committee for Environmental Protection, the National Committee of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea on Hydraulic Construction and Irrigated Agriculture, and with organizations within the scope of its management.

To ensure coordinated action in management of and control over rational use and protection of water resources, the Crimean BWA and the Republic Committee have approved an Order of power division, under which the Crimean BWA carries out its activities in the towns of republican subordination, such as Krasnoperekopsk, Armyansk, Dzhankoy, Evpatoria, Saki, Kerch, as well as the regions of Great Yalta, Great Alushta, Sudak, Feodosia, and in Sevastopol.


The main objectives of the Crimean BWA are as follows:

- Managing the protection and restoration of water resources;
- Implementing measures for environmental health improvement of surface water;
- Meeting water demands of population and industries;
- Maintaining the system of state water monitoring;
- Monitoring compliance with the requirements of water legislation.

At present, the functions entrusted to the authority are fulfilled by 44 persons, including 8 managers, 33 engineers, and 3 workers.
Guidance of the Crimean BWA carries the Chief, who makes decisions independently concerning the organization’s activities, except for issues related to jurisdiction of the Ukrainian State Water Resources Committee, according to national legislation.

Management structure consists of 6 departments:
- Financial and economic department;
- Department of state accounting of water use;
- Department of water resources;
- Department of rivers, inter-farm systems and water inventory;
- Department of anthropogenic and ecological safety and supervisory control;
- Department of information and system support.

In terms of administrative-territorial context, the region, where the Crimean BWA operates is one of the most complex ones in Ukraine. It comprises 14 administrative districts, 11 towns and the Sevastopol city of state importance.
The area of the Crimean peninsula is 27,0 thousand km2 (4,3% of the area of Ukraine). The population is more than 2 millions.

1657 rivers and temporary streams, with the total length of 5996 km, flow across the Crimea. 1655 waterways (92,1%) belong to small rivers, and 2 rivers (Salgir and Chatyrlyk) are of medium size.

The Crimea has minor reserves of local surface water, which amount to 910 million m3 in normal year and 430 million m3 in dry year.
As to spatial distribution of flow, 85% of the annual flow occurs in the rivers of north-western, southern and south-eastern slopes of the Crimean mountains.
Water availability per capita is 0.37 thousand m3/year. For comparison, this parameters is on average 1.08 m3 in Ukraine and 4.6 m3 in Europe.

The projected groundwater reserves are 483.9 million m3, the approved available reserves are 430.1 million m3, but in some areas (Saki, Chernomorie, Razdolnensk, etc.), groundwater is very saline and cannot be a source of safe drinking water. 

Virtually, all available local water sources in the Crimea are involved in water supply system, and they can ensure the needs of population and industries by 15-20%.
Surface water scarcity is compensated through the Dnieper’s water via the North-Crimean canal, which can transport up to 3 billion m3 per year.

For storage of local runoff and the Dnieper’s water, as well as for regulation of its supply to the Crimea, 23 water reservoirs were built with the total volume of 399.42 million m3 at normal maximum operating level, including 15 in-stream reservoirs and 8 off-stream reservoirs filled with water from NCC (North-Crimean Canal).

 
Bashtanovsky pond (Bahchisaray district)

1,700 ponds, with the total water surface area of 7794 hectares, are located in the Crimea.
The quantity of lakes is 315, of which 14 are classified as medicinal ones. The total water surface area is 39500 hectares.

Currently, the public water accounting system covers 1,426 companies, organizations, and businesses, including 1228 in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, 198 in Sevastopol, and amounts to 9.5% of the total number of water users who report using the Form 2-TP (vodkhoz ) "Report on the use of water" in Ukraine. Every year, we work to identify new water users taking water from water bodies and discharging return water into water bodies and thus extend the list of reporting users.

The reporting water users represent the following categories:
- 39.2% - agriculture;
- 22% - utilities;
- 15.5 - industry;
- 22.4 - recreation;
- 9.9 - other enterprises.

High levels of economic growth and land development in Crimea has caused some imbalance in natural landscape, conditions of runoff formation; meanwhile, significant harm to human settlements, agricultural land and other economic projects is caused by floods and water-logging. The analysis showed that in recent years, because of multiple (in 3,8 times compared to 1990) reduction of water supply for irrigation, a slight lowering in groundwater levels and amelioration of situation occurred on arable land.
Currently, the causes of floods in the region are the increased anthropogenic impact on the river basins, non-fulfillment of flood control measures in full, and climatic factors.

Anthropogenic load is characterized by the following factors: development of dried riverbeds and river floodplains; siltation of river channels as a result of plowing the coastal shelterbelts; lack of drainage and escape network for disposal of storm and snowmelt water; and, lack and cutover of forests in water protection zones of the rivers, as well as breach of hydrological regimes of rivers and lakes.

The development of floodplains and dried riverbeds often was carried out without consideration of hydrological and hydrogeological characteristics, often in violation of applicable laws. In particular, this applies to the settlements located in river valleys Belbek, Alma, Bodrak, Kacha, Marta, Biyuk-Karasu, Kuchuk-Karasu, Tana-Su, Subash, Salgir, Small Salgir, Demerdji, and others, as well as on the coasts of Lakes Aktash, Churbash, Sasyk-Sivash, Red, Kiyat.

To solve the above problems, it is necessary to attract funds from the State Budget of Ukraine within the framework of the “State program on the development of water resources”, raise funds from the Republican budget under the “Program of Water Sector Development in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea until 2015”, funds from local budgets, business entities, and from other sources. Initiation of these issues is one of the priority tasks assigned to the Crimean BWA.

The Analytical dispatch control center keeps control over the situation on the water works in Crimea. It collects information about the filling of reservoirs, their conditions, the water levels in rivers, canals, predicts the situation in the event of severe weather conditions, floods, droughts. In the case of the risk of emergency, the Center liaises with the ESM (Emergency Situations Ministry) and the local councils.

Together with the local governments, plans were developed and approved for the interaction of the Crimean BWA and the executive committees of municipal councils to respond to emergencies (the city of Simferopol, Yalta, Evpatoriya, Feodosiya, Saki, Dzhankoy, Sudak) and the Ukrainian Ministry of Emergencies in Crimea.

In order to prevent emergency situations on water bodies and timely respond, the Sevastopol regional administration adopted a similar plan of interactions with the Office of the Ministry of Emergencies in Sevastopol. A procedure of interactions with water organizations at the Republican Committee for Water Resources, district commissions for emergency situations and other bodies of executive power was developed.

The Crimean hydrogeological and land reclamation expedition implements monitoring programs of reclaimed land and rural settlements flooding, as well as surface water monitoring inn the territory of Crimea.

The total area monitored by the expedition is 1531.4 thousand hectares, including 1355.9 thousand hectares, where in systematic observations are conducted. From observations, the area of land with good conditions amounts to 1264.8 thousand hectares; 69.9 hectares of land are satisfactory and 21,2 thousand hectares are unsatisfactory.

Publications
Specialists of the Crimean BWA prepared and published the following information materials:


1. Sustainable Crimea. Water resources
2. Waterfalls of Crimea
3. Water sector in Crimea: Development history and current status
4. Rivers and lakes of Crimea
5. Surface water bodies of the Crimea (reference-book)

In order to familiarize people and concerned organizations with water management system of the Crimea, challenges, objectives and ways of further development, specialists of BWA developed a site that is updated regularly. Site address: http://www.buvr.crimea.ua


International cooperation

In 2008, the Crimean basin water association adopted a proposal from VNG International Agency for International Cooperation of the Netherlands Municipalities Association (VNG) to participate in a joint project to develop management plan for river basins.
The project of bilateral cooperation between the Crimean BWA and partners from the Netherlands - LOGO EAST II, approved for 2008-2009, schedules the following work:

1. Create a plan for integrated water resources management in river basin of Salgir.
2. Improve the monitoring system in the Salgir basin. In addition, the negotiations identified specific areas, volumes and stages of work, and agreed a detailed plan for the first phase of the project for the period June-October 2008.
River basin management plans of the Crimean region should become an instrument through which environmental goals will be achieved in the river basin.

"Clean sources"

In June 30, 2009, the opening ceremony of rehabilitated spring called "Chumakary" in Zalese v. of Simferopol district was held under the leadership of the Crimean BWA. In October 2008, BWA with the support by Trudov village council and financial assistance of a number of enterprises carried out restoration of catchment at the river of Maliy Salgir in the Drujnoye Trudov village council of Simferopol district.

In 2007, the Crimean BWA conducted work on the improvement of Bor-Chokrak spring at Slavyanka River. In November 2007, BWA contributed to the All-Ukrainian contest "For clean sources" established by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. As a result, BWA took the first place and was awarded the diploma.



Geographic Information System

For a more qualitative analysis of the situation in the water sector of the Crimea, BWA generates digital maps with electronic databases using MapInfo, Access. Implementation of these works will contribute to development of the software for water management in the Crimea.


Address:
95034, Ukraine, Crimea, Simferopol, str.Kiyevskaya, 77 / 4
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Website: http://www.buvr.crimea.ua