Madeleine Finlay speaks to Doug Weir from the Conflict and Environment Observatory about why the collapse of the Kakhovka dam is likely to be so damaging for biodiversity, access to clean water and levels of pollution. He explains why the environment has become such a central part of the narrative and considers what this increased focus could mean for Ukraine’s eventual recovery. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

A week ago, in the early hours of June 6, the Novokuznetskaya dam in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine was destroyed.

A potential humanitarian crisis developing near the front lines in Ukraine this morning.

Vast quantities of water gushing over this major dam after Ukraine says Russian forces who control the surrounding area caused an explosion.

The Novokuznetskoye Dam sits on the southern reach of the Dnieper River and it holds back a reservoir so big that locals call it the Kokovka Sea.

When it collapsed, water surged downstream, causing catastrophic damage and forcing thousands to evacuate.

Drone footage showed rooftops barely holding above rising water lines, some swept away entirely by the Dnipro River, as floodwaters engulfed village after village in southern Ukraine.

Maybe it will be again when it dries out.

Amnesty International have called it a huge humanitarian disaster.

But the destruction is also likely to have a devastating environmental impact on animals, ecosystems, and levels of toxic pollution.

So what do we know about the ecological damage done so far?

And what role is damage to the environment playing in the story of this conflict?

From The Guardian, I'm Madeline Finlay and this is Science Weekly.

Doug Weir, you're the Research and Policy Director at the Conflict and Environment Observatory, a British organisation that's been tracking the environmental impact of the war in Ukraine.

First of all, why has the Novokuznetsk dam become so strategically important in this conflict?

So in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, the Ukrainian government blocked up the North Crimean Canal, and the entry point to this canal is right next to the Novokuznetskoye Dam.

And that prevented the flow of water south onto the Crimean Peninsula.

Crimean Peninsula is particularly arid and the water crisis that this triggered had a huge impact on agriculture and also on its economy, caused a lot of political problems for Moscow and for the Russian backed authorities.

And right at the outset of the invasion, we saw Russian military moving at haste towards the Novo Kokovo Dam and they occupied it within the first 36 hours.

And that gave them control over the North Crimean Canal.

Within a few days, they got water flowing once again back down towards Crimea.

And so, right from the very start of this conflict, we've seen water as a tool, as a strategically important objective for Russian forces.

The impact of the dam collapse crosses both Ukrainian and Russian-held territory.

But let's talk first about the impact on the area above the dam which the water has drained out of, starting with the threat to the Russian-occupied Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.

There was some concern from the International Energy Agency, the IEA, that have been monitoring what's been happening at the power plant because it uses water from the reservoir to fill its cooling ponds and there needs to be at least 12 metres for the plant to be able to draw the water up.

This was obviously a key concern as soon as news broke that the dam had been destroyed because you have this water level threshold.

The IEA, who've obviously been highly involved in what's been happening at the plant since its occupation, they announced quite early on that there was enough water held in cooling ponds at the plant to cool down the reactors, 5 of which are in cold shutdown mode, which means they're not generating electricity.

They still need some cooling because of residual heat from radioactivity and the sixth 1 is being put into hot shutdown mode.

So they think there's around 3 months of water left in the cooling pond there for use.

Beyond that point, there are question marks around how more water can be brought onto site for this as well.

And of course, it wasn't just the power plant using this water.

So What else has been impacted by the loss of the water from the reservoir that the Nova Kharkovka Dam was holding back?

So this was a huge amount of water, 18 cubic kilometres, that was held back by the dam.

So southern Ukraine is quite arid, a hugely important agricultural area, And there are 4 canals which came off Lake Kharkovka, which brought water down to 3 of them down to the south, 1 up to the north, 1 of these to water all the way to Crimea.

And these dams are responsible irrigation for a huge area of southern Ukraine.

And we've seen what the impact of loss of water is for agricultural areas.

So satellites, right, sensing has seen that you had this decline in vegetation.

We've had this increase in groundwater extraction for agricultural purposes and that then comes with risks around groundwater declines and mineralization of soils.

Historically, you've got a huge amount of industrial pollution in this lake and held back in sediments behind these dams down the whole Dnieper cascade, and also agricultural pollutants in these sediments, many of which have been washed down, but there'll also be large areas that are going to dry out.

There are estimates that there might be maybe a thousand square kilometers of lake bed exposed once the water level drops, and then you're gonna have issues around windblown pollutants.

1 thing to consider is that this is an artificial system, it's a man-made system, but these dams have been in place since the 50s.

It's been there for decades and so the ecosystems have developed in relation to that.

So they're important habitats for fisheries but also for birds and other freshwater wildlife.

All this water that's very important for southern Ukraine has now flooded into the area below the dam.

And this has caused a massive humanitarian crisis.

But what do we know about the environmental impact of the flooding?

Along this area you have a number of quite important ecological areas.

This included Black Sea Biosphere Reserve, which is a UNESCO heritage site, but also a number of other quite sensitive and fragile sites.

So we're thinking of physical damage to habitats, so reed beds and wetlands being washed away or damaged.

Many of these were based on sandy sediments, for example, so quite prone to erosion.

We've got quite a lot of species who enjoy arid conditions, burrowing animals, all of these creatures which may then suffer if you have prolonged inundation.

So this is the question at the moment is how long, how high is the water level rise, which we saw a peak in the last few days, but how long is the water going to stick around and what is its impact going to be?

As well as just the volume of the water, there's also issues around the quality of the water.

I've read a lot of reports that this water is particularly polluted and that there may be issues with sewage and waste.

Yes, we've been supporting the United Nations Environment Programme in their assessment of the impacts here.

1 of the key areas of concern that we had in terms of chemical pollution was around Kursun.

So in Kursun, there's a low lying area, which is kind of port and dock area, and that's been completely inundated.

So we expect point sources of chemical pollution from some of these sites.

In addition to kind of industrial and chemical pollution, yeah, there's huge risks around microbiological pollution from contaminated water.

So wastewater treatment plants from septic tanks, from systems backing up, all of which is going into the floodwaters.

Similarly, you have a lot of smaller settlements which have also been flooded.

So again, lots of potential pollutant sources there, be it garages or workshops, petrol stations, again septic tanks under people's houses.

So you have this wide range of potential pollutants in the water, which obviously a threat to public health, but also a potential threat to environmental health as well.

On top of all of this, there's the threat of landmines, which may have become dislodged during the flooding.

What do we know right now about that risk?

Yes, I think the wider context in this conflict is that both sides have been using landmines quite extensively.

The left bank of the Dnieper, so the southern side of it, which has been under Russian occupation, that has been getting prepared for months by Russia to be the frontline.

So there's been trenching and mine laying along there.

And This is 1 of the areas which has been most flooded, more so than the right bank on the Ukrainian hillside because the land is higher.

But even there, you've still seen a lot of current minefields which have been flooded.

And we've heard from a number of mine clearance actors, so the International Committee of the Red Cross, the HALO Trust from the UK, who've been working in these areas on clearance operations.

And firstly, their access to these areas has now been restricted by the presence of water, but they're also very concerned that landmines can float, essentially.

So if they are buried 6 inches, 12 inches deep, they may lift up and float and be remobilized, or if you have very strong floodwaters coming through.

So then the problem is that these mines are no longer in marked minefields, so areas where the Ukrainian military, for example, or Russian military may have maps of where these minefields are.

And instead you have mines mixed in with the sediment deposited by the flood downstream.

It's going to be a long time until we get the full picture of the damage caused by this dam collapse.

But already Ukraine has called this an act of ecocide.

So Ukraine and Russia are in the minority of the countries globally that have ecocide in their domestic legislation.

And under Ukraine's definition of ecocide, under its domestic legislation, what we've seen at the dam would very much meet that threshold.

However, this is Ukraine's domestic law and it's not currently featuring in international law.

So there have been proposals and a long-running campaign to get ecocide reckoned as kind of this fifth crime against humanity.

So that would mean introducing it into the International Criminal Court where it would apply both in peacetime but also during conflict, but it's not there yet.

The International Criminal Court can prosecute war crimes against the environment that cause widespread and long-term and severe damage to the environment.

And part of the problem is that the threshold of widespread, long-term and severe has never really been tested properly in law.

As of yesterday morning, the International Criminal Court have been investigating the case of the dam collapse.

Will it then actually come to the point where you might have a trial in future?

But It's argued the International Criminal Court is under increasing pressure to look at environmental crimes because of the increasingly vocal movement around ecocide, but also in terms of this conflict where we've seen massive amounts of environmental damage to a whole range of components of the environment.

And there's increasing interest and attention and accountability for this damage.

Doug, environmental damage isn't often a focus during conflicts and yet it has been during the invasion of Ukraine.

What do you think this says about how the environment is playing a part in the framing of what's been happening?

We quite often see environmental information being used for propaganda purposes in some respects.

This is becoming increasingly prevalent thanks to social media.

This has been done by both sides, both parties to the conflict.

For Ukraine, they have had 8 years experience of facing these ecological risks from damage during conflict.

So these narratives weren't new for them.

The environmental harms have become particularly visible because you've had a number of instances which have had very clear environmental effects.

So like forest fires burning, For example, the occupation of a nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia or Chernobyl exclusion zone.

So I think there is a very sort of fine line between drawing attention to these environmental problems and that question of focusing on them for propagandistic purposes, which is completely understandable from Ukraine's perspective.

But it's been interesting to see how this narrative has developed because of the different fora which Ukraine have used.

So for example, they went to COP 27, the climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh last year and they were talking about trying to value the environmental damage that's been caused and things.

So they've been using different environmental platforms and fora to try and promote and draw attention to environmental damage in the conflict and that's something which is quite new as well.

I invite you, you all, to support our initiative presented here at the conference, creation of a global platform to assess the impact of military actions on climate and environment.

There can be no effective climate policy without the peace on the earth.

Russia needs to shut the guns and hide its missiles so the world finally hears what we can all really do together to save ourselves from the climate disaster.

Of course right now Ukraine are fighting a conflict of survival, but when it comes to what happens further down the line, the environment now is a focus for all of us and it will only become more of a focus as we get further into the climate crisis.

And I wonder what your view is on where Ukraine is with its relationship to the environment and what will happen to the country in the coming years.

So this is the first time we've been tracking a conflict and journalists have got in touch with us saying, what is the impact of the conflict on climate change?

And that kind of reflects this growing sensitization on the environment generally across society, but also the visibility of harm which is coming out of Ukraine.

Over the longer term, there are a lot of questions around how the environment can be addressed during the recovery process.

So Ukraine has already, for the last few years, been trying to align itself with European environmental law as a prelude to closer cooperation and eventual membership.

And there are an awful lot of civil society voices in Ukraine who are highlighting and foregrounding the need for recovery to be sustainable.

So that means climate adaptation, for example, expanding renewable energy, moving away from coal.

This could be a really important test, essentially, for post-conflict recovery for countries and how we can start to use that recovery process to help make gains around climate adaptation, around nature gains and biodiversity improvement, but it's only going to do that if we can ensure this environmental narrative features in the context of a conflict.

You can find a link to more Guardian reporting on this story on the podcast webpage at theguardian.com.

This episode was produced by me, Madeline Finlay, the sound design was by Joel Cox, and the executive producer was Ellie Burey.


Speaker 0: This is The Guardian. A week ago, in the early hours of June 6, the Novokuznetskaya dam in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine was destroyed.

Speaker 1: A potential humanitarian crisis developing near the front lines in Ukraine this morning. Vast quantities of water gushing over this major dam after Ukraine says Russian forces who control the surrounding area caused an explosion.

Speaker 0: The Novokuznetskoye Dam sits on the southern reach of the Dnieper River and it holds back a reservoir so big that locals call it the Kokovka Sea. When it collapsed, water surged downstream, causing catastrophic damage and forcing thousands to evacuate.

Speaker 2: Drone footage showed rooftops barely holding above rising water lines, some swept away entirely by the Dnipro River, as floodwaters engulfed village after village in southern Ukraine.

Speaker 3: This is our home.

Speaker 2: It's our home where we live, or it was. Maybe it will be again when it dries out.

Speaker 0: Amnesty International have called it a huge humanitarian disaster. But the destruction is also likely to have a devastating environmental impact on animals, ecosystems, and levels of toxic pollution. So what do we know about the ecological damage done so far? Could it amount to ecocide? And what role is damage to the environment playing in the story of this conflict?

From The Guardian, I'm Madeline Finlay and this is Science Weekly. Doug Weir, you're the Research and Policy Director at the Conflict and Environment Observatory, a British organisation that's been tracking the environmental impact of the war in Ukraine. First of all, why has the Novokuznetsk dam become so strategically important in this conflict?

Speaker 3: So in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, the Ukrainian government blocked up the North Crimean Canal, and the entry point to this canal is right next to the Novokuznetskoye Dam. And that prevented the flow of water south onto the Crimean Peninsula. Crimean Peninsula is particularly arid and the water crisis that this triggered had a huge impact on agriculture and also on its economy, caused a lot of political problems for Moscow and for the Russian backed authorities. And right at the outset of the invasion, we saw Russian military moving at haste towards the Novo Kokovo Dam and they occupied it within the first 36 hours. And that gave them control over the North Crimean Canal.

Within a few days, they got water flowing once again back down towards Crimea. And so, right from the very start of this conflict, we've seen water as a tool, as a strategically important objective for Russian forces.

Speaker 0: The impact of the dam collapse crosses both Ukrainian and Russian-held territory. But let's talk first about the impact on the area above the dam which the water has drained out of, starting with the threat to the Russian-occupied Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. There was some concern from the International Energy Agency, the IEA, that have been monitoring what's been happening at the power plant because it uses water from the reservoir to fill its cooling ponds and there needs to be at least 12 metres for the plant to be able to draw the water up. So what's the latest on that?

Speaker 3: This was obviously a key concern as soon as news broke that the dam had been destroyed because you have this water level threshold. The IEA, who've obviously been highly involved in what's been happening at the plant since its occupation, they announced quite early on that there was enough water held in cooling ponds at the plant to cool down the reactors, 5 of which are in cold shutdown mode, which means they're not generating electricity. They still need some cooling because of residual heat from radioactivity and the sixth 1 is being put into hot shutdown mode. So they think there's around 3 months of water left in the cooling pond there for use. Beyond that point, there are question marks around how more water can be brought onto site for this as well.

Speaker 0: And of course, it wasn't just the power plant using this water. So What else has been impacted by the loss of the water from the reservoir that the Nova Kharkovka Dam was holding back?

Speaker 3: So this was a huge amount of water, 18 cubic kilometres, that was held back by the dam. So southern Ukraine is quite arid, a hugely important agricultural area, And there are 4 canals which came off Lake Kharkovka, which brought water down to 3 of them down to the south, 1 up to the north, 1 of these to water all the way to Crimea. And these dams are responsible irrigation for a huge area of southern Ukraine. And we've seen what the impact of loss of water is for agricultural areas. So satellites, right, sensing has seen that you had this decline in vegetation.

We've had this increase in groundwater extraction for agricultural purposes and that then comes with risks around groundwater declines and mineralization of soils. Historically, you've got a huge amount of industrial pollution in this lake and held back in sediments behind these dams down the whole Dnieper cascade, and also agricultural pollutants in these sediments, many of which have been washed down, but there'll also be large areas that are going to dry out. There are estimates that there might be maybe a thousand square kilometers of lake bed exposed once the water level drops, and then you're gonna have issues around windblown pollutants. 1 thing to consider is that this is an artificial system, it's a man-made system, but these dams have been in place since the 50s. It's been there for decades and so the ecosystems have developed in relation to that.

So they're important habitats for fisheries but also for birds and other freshwater wildlife.

Speaker 0: All this water that's very important for southern Ukraine has now flooded into the area below the dam. And this has caused a massive humanitarian crisis. But what do we know about the environmental impact of the flooding?

Speaker 3: Along this area you have a number of quite important ecological areas. This included Black Sea Biosphere Reserve, which is a UNESCO heritage site, but also a number of other quite sensitive and fragile sites. So we're thinking of physical damage to habitats, so reed beds and wetlands being washed away or damaged. Many of these were based on sandy sediments, for example, so quite prone to erosion. We've got quite a lot of species who enjoy arid conditions, burrowing animals, all of these creatures which may then suffer if you have prolonged inundation.

So this is the question at the moment is how long, how high is the water level rise, which we saw a peak in the last few days, but how long is the water going to stick around and what is its impact going to be?

Speaker 0: As well as just the volume of the water, there's also issues around the quality of the water. I've read a lot of reports that this water is particularly polluted and that there may be issues with sewage and waste. Talk me through that.

Speaker 3: Yes, we've been supporting the United Nations Environment Programme in their assessment of the impacts here. 1 of the key areas of concern that we had in terms of chemical pollution was around Kursun. So in Kursun, there's a low lying area, which is kind of port and dock area, and that's been completely inundated. So we expect point sources of chemical pollution from some of these sites. In addition to kind of industrial and chemical pollution, yeah, there's huge risks around microbiological pollution from contaminated water.

So wastewater treatment plants from septic tanks, from systems backing up, all of which is going into the floodwaters. Similarly, you have a lot of smaller settlements which have also been flooded. So again, lots of potential pollutant sources there, be it garages or workshops, petrol stations, again septic tanks under people's houses. So you have this wide range of potential pollutants in the water, which obviously a threat to public health, but also a potential threat to environmental health as well.

Speaker 0: On top of all of this, there's the threat of landmines, which may have become dislodged during the flooding. What do we know right now about that risk?

Speaker 3: Yes, I think the wider context in this conflict is that both sides have been using landmines quite extensively. The left bank of the Dnieper, so the southern side of it, which has been under Russian occupation, that has been getting prepared for months by Russia to be the frontline. So there's been trenching and mine laying along there. And This is 1 of the areas which has been most flooded, more so than the right bank on the Ukrainian hillside because the land is higher. But even there, you've still seen a lot of current minefields which have been flooded.

And we've heard from a number of mine clearance actors, so the International Committee of the Red Cross, the HALO Trust from the UK, who've been working in these areas on clearance operations. And firstly, their access to these areas has now been restricted by the presence of water, but they're also very concerned that landmines can float, essentially. So if they are buried 6 inches, 12 inches deep, they may lift up and float and be remobilized, or if you have very strong floodwaters coming through. So then the problem is that these mines are no longer in marked minefields, so areas where the Ukrainian military, for example, or Russian military may have maps of where these minefields are. And instead you have mines mixed in with the sediment deposited by the flood downstream.

Speaker 0: It's going to be a long time until we get the full picture of the damage caused by this dam collapse. But already Ukraine has called this an act of ecocide. What does this mean?

Speaker 3: So Ukraine and Russia are in the minority of the countries globally that have ecocide in their domestic legislation. And under Ukraine's definition of ecocide, under its domestic legislation, what we've seen at the dam would very much meet that threshold. However, this is Ukraine's domestic law and it's not currently featuring in international law. So there have been proposals and a long-running campaign to get ecocide reckoned as kind of this fifth crime against humanity. So that would mean introducing it into the International Criminal Court where it would apply both in peacetime but also during conflict, but it's not there yet.

The International Criminal Court can prosecute war crimes against the environment that cause widespread and long-term and severe damage to the environment. They have never done so. And part of the problem is that the threshold of widespread, long-term and severe has never really been tested properly in law. As of yesterday morning, the International Criminal Court have been investigating the case of the dam collapse. Will it then actually come to the point where you might have a trial in future?

That very much remains to be seen. It's very early days. But It's argued the International Criminal Court is under increasing pressure to look at environmental crimes because of the increasingly vocal movement around ecocide, but also in terms of this conflict where we've seen massive amounts of environmental damage to a whole range of components of the environment. And there's increasing interest and attention and accountability for this damage.

Speaker 0: Doug, environmental damage isn't often a focus during conflicts and yet it has been during the invasion of Ukraine. What do you think this says about how the environment is playing a part in the framing of what's been happening?

Speaker 3: That's an interesting question. We quite often see environmental information being used for propaganda purposes in some respects. This is becoming increasingly prevalent thanks to social media. This has been done by both sides, both parties to the conflict. For Ukraine, they have had 8 years experience of facing these ecological risks from damage during conflict.

So these narratives weren't new for them. The environmental harms have become particularly visible because you've had a number of instances which have had very clear environmental effects. So like forest fires burning, For example, the occupation of a nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia or Chernobyl exclusion zone. So I think there is a very sort of fine line between drawing attention to these environmental problems and that question of focusing on them for propagandistic purposes, which is completely understandable from Ukraine's perspective. But it's been interesting to see how this narrative has developed because of the different fora which Ukraine have used.

So for example, they went to COP 27, the climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh last year and they were talking about trying to value the environmental damage that's been caused and things. So they've been using different environmental platforms and fora to try and promote and draw attention to environmental damage in the conflict and that's something which is quite new as well.

Speaker 4: I invite you, you all, to support our initiative presented here at the conference, creation of a global platform to assess the impact of military actions on climate and environment. There can be no effective climate policy without the peace on the earth. Russia needs to shut the guns and hide its missiles so the world finally hears what we can all really do together to save ourselves from the climate disaster.

Speaker 0: Of course right now Ukraine are fighting a conflict of survival, but when it comes to what happens further down the line, the environment now is a focus for all of us and it will only become more of a focus as we get further into the climate crisis. And I wonder what your view is on where Ukraine is with its relationship to the environment and what will happen to the country in the coming years.

Speaker 3: So this is the first time we've been tracking a conflict and journalists have got in touch with us saying, what is the impact of the conflict on climate change? And that's never happened before. And that kind of reflects this growing sensitization on the environment generally across society, but also the visibility of harm which is coming out of Ukraine. Over the longer term, there are a lot of questions around how the environment can be addressed during the recovery process. So Ukraine has already, for the last few years, been trying to align itself with European environmental law as a prelude to closer cooperation and eventual membership.

And there are an awful lot of civil society voices in Ukraine who are highlighting and foregrounding the need for recovery to be sustainable. So that means climate adaptation, for example, expanding renewable energy, moving away from coal. This could be a really important test, essentially, for post-conflict recovery for countries and how we can start to use that recovery process to help make gains around climate adaptation, around nature gains and biodiversity improvement, but it's only going to do that if we can ensure this environmental narrative features in the context of a conflict.

Speaker 0: Doug, thank you so much.

Speaker 3: You're very welcome. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 0: Thanks again to Doug Weir. You can find a link to more Guardian reporting on this story on the podcast webpage at theguardian.com. And that's all from us. This episode was produced by me, Madeline Finlay, the sound design was by Joel Cox, and the executive producer was Ellie Burey. We'll be back on Thursday.

See you then.

Speaker 3: This is the Guardian.

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Kakhovka dam destruction: why is Ukraine calling it ‘ecocide’?