Protection of lake

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• Data of automatic monitoring stations
• Environmental satellite monitoring system for Baikal natural area
• State environmental monitoring of Lake Baikal for the year 2012
• State environmental monitoring of Lake Baikal for the year 2015

Air

Air condition over the BNP is influenced by both local factors affecting distribution and transportation of pollutants and their anthropogenic sources. The most important source of pollution is factories and traffic in the Irkutsk-Cheremkhovsk industrial area within the ecological zone of atmospheric influence (EZAI) of the BNP. Other sources, both stationary and mobile, exist in the area's central and buffer zones. The region’s climate and geography - remoteness from seas and oceans, frequent atmospheric highs during the cold season, low temperatures and little precipitation in the winter - prevent the atmosphere from cleaning itself effectively. Dispersion factors at the BNP are 2-3 times weaker than, for example, in the European part of Russia. Unfavorable conditions are common in the cold season, when powerful temperature inversions and weak winds help pollution accumulate in cities and industrial areas. The same conditions prevent pollutants from travelling more than 80-100km by air, which helps to limit the influence of EZAI sources on Lake Baikal. In the central ecological zone (CEZ) of the BNP, four towns in Irkutsk Oblast monitor air condition - Baikalsk, Slyudyanka, Listvyanka and Kultuk. Within the buffer ecological zone (BEZ) air quality is measured in four large population centers of Buryatia - Ula-Ude, Kyakhta, Selenginsk, Gusinoozersk - and in Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky of Zabaikalsky Krai. Within the EZAI, five cities in Irkutsk Oblast perform measurements: Irkutsk, Shelekhov, Angarsk, Usolye-Sibirsky and Cheremkhovo. Main pollutants are airborne substances in various concentrations, benzapyrene, carbon oxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, formaldehyde and several area-specific contaminants: methanethiol, hydrogen sulfide, fluorine hydride, chlorine.

No high or very high pollution levels were recorded within the CEZ in 2012. In Baikalsk air pollution level, as in 2011, was low (API 1). The average annual concentration of benzapyrene was 1.6 times the sanitary standard (the same as in 2011). The highest average monthly concentration was 3.0 times the maximum permissible concentration (the same as in 2010). A maximum one-off concentration of hydrogen sulfide was 1.3 times the maximum permissible concentration (1.1 times in 2011), carbon disulfide was 3.0 times (the same as in 2011). Maximum one-off concentrations of methanethiol were within the maximum permissible concentration. This shows that in 2012 atmospheric pollution in Baikalsk grew slightly.

Levels for Slyudyanka, Listvyanka and Kultuk were low, just as they had been in the previous years. Average annual concentrations of analytes in Slyudyanka were 1.2 times the sanitary standard; in Kultuk they were 1.3 times; in Listvyanka (nitrogen dioxide) - 1.2 times. Maximum one-off concentrations for suspended substances in Kultuk and Slyudyanka exceeded the maximum permissible concentration 2.8 and 3.4 times, respectively; in Listvyanka (nitrogen oxide) it was 3.8 times.

Maximum one-off concentrations of carbon oxide, sulfur dioxide and heavy metal analytes within CEZ in 2011 were within maximum permissible concentrations. 

In Listvyanka maximum one-off concentrations of nitrogen oxide have increased (in 2012 they were 3.8 times the maximum permissible concentration, in 2011 - 1.3 times).