Zaporizhzhia has become a living ecological experiment since the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. From Incentre / Rubryka.
Ukraine’s front-line city of Zaporizhzhia, situated on the banks of the Dnipro River, is witnessing a pivotal moment in history. Once-established ecosystems have been drastically changing since Russian forces blew up the Kakhovka Dam downstream. From swarms of locusts over the train station to sturgeons caught on fishing lines, locals are seeing countless signs that southern Ukraine will never be the same again.
The construction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, dam, and reservoir reshaped the ecosystems of Ukraine’s south. Following the famine of 1946 and 1947, Soviet authorities decided to build Europe’s largest irrigation system with the Kakhovka Reservoir as a water source and transform one of Ukraine’s most arid regions into farmland. The land around the reservoir was flooded at enormous cost, but nature eventually adapted.
When Russian forces blew up the Kakhovka Dam on 6 June 2023, they destroyed an ecosystem that had been forming for decades in the lower Dnipro River basin. Those catastrophic, instantaneous changes were only the first stage of an unprecedented ecological event – one that continues to unfold across the region.
After the Dam
Researchers at the Khortytsia Island National Reserve were the first in Zaporizhzhia, a city upstream from the Kakhovka Reservoir, to witness how water started receding. In the first days after the disaster, the water level in Khortytsia’s floodplain ponds dropped by about 10 centimeters per hour. The reserve quickly lost its connection to the Dnipro River. In its place, new dry land appeared, creating walkable passages to small islands along the bank.
Since the Kakhovka Reservoir was drained, researchers at the reserve have conducted systematic observations and documented the changes in biodiversity. Within weeks, they observed catastrophic die-offs of aquatic plants, mollusks, and fish, as well as dramatic changes to the habitats of 59 bird species in the Zaporizhzhia area. By the end of 2024, just one local protected site on the island, the Dnipro Rapids Sanctuary, had estimated its losses at more than $35.6 million.
Over the past two years, the Dnipro River has retreated far from the banks where locals once saw it. “Right now, the vertical difference between the old waterline and the new one is about five meters. Horizontally, that’s anywhere from five meters where the slopes are steep, to up to 450 meters in the southern part of the island,” says Mykhailo Mulenko, acting head of the nature protection department at the Khortytsia National Reserve.
Along this stretch of the Dnipro River, the waterline had never been fixed – its rise and fall depended on how much water the upstream hydroelectric stations released. However, now old tree stumps are emerging at the water’s edge, revealing that this area was once dry land.
What was once the norm before the dam’s construction now feels like a catastrophe – at least for some ecosystems. For nearly 70 years, both the city and its environment developed under much higher groundwater levels. The retreat of the water has already triggered a chain of localized events that directly affect the region’s biodiversity. Many of them are unexpected. Still, not all environmental problems are directly linked to the explosion that destroyed the Kakhovka Dam. Scientists say some would have happened anyway, even without the drop in water levels.
The Dnipro’s retreat disrupted the usual balance along vast stretches of land near the river. Many connected ponds and lakes turned shallow, overheated, and rapidly lost oxygen. Unsurprisingly, this led to mass fish deaths. In 2024 and 2025, the State Environmental Inspectorate of the Southern District recorded at least seven major fish die-offs in the Zaporizhzhia region.
“In the past, fish die-offs in the region were isolated incidents. But after the Kakhovka Dam was blown up, they became regular,” says Oleh Bihdan, head of the environmental inspectorate. “The causes varied: lack of oxygen, high pH levels, water pollution, fungal infections, sudden water-level fluctuations. But the main factor was the hydrological disruption caused by the loss of the Kakhovka Reservoir.”
In March 2024, dead birds began to appear along the banks of the Dnipro, first a few, then dozens. Most were cormorants.
Residents of Zaporizhzhia, an industrial city, were sure it was a chemical spill, but scientists had a different explanation. “In the past, most waterfowl were concentrated on the cliffs near the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station, where access was minimal. No one ever really saw how many dead cormorants there were,” Mulenko says.
But why so many dead birds at once? Ornithologist Maksym Yakovliev from the Tuzly Estuaries National Nature Park explains that when the cormorant population becomes too large, the likelihood of infectious diseases increases. In spring, there’s also less food and more competition. The weaker birds die off.
A walk along the northern bank of Khortytsia Island has a distinct atmosphere and at times is accompanied by a sharp smell. Here and there, dead fish lie scattered along the bank. Some are remarkably large.
“The mass die-off of bighead carp in the upper part of Khortytsia is mostly the result of hydrological changes after the loss of the Kakhovka Reservoir,” Bihdan says. “Lakes that used to connect with the Dnipro became isolated, oxygen levels dropped sharply, and the water overheated. We also had a theory that increased water discharges from the Dnipro Hydroelectric Plant caused stress in the fish – sudden changes in water level can do that – and led to their deaths.”
Fish are also killed by the turbines of the Dnipro Hydroelectric Plant, according to Mulenko. “There are screens meant to block the fish, but when the spillway gates are opened, the pressure is so strong it just sucks them through like a meat grinder. That’s it.”
Those who arrived in Zaporizhzhia on 20 July 2025 by the Intercity train from Kyiv might have been stunned. A cloud of locusts greeted them above the railway station. The swirling insects over city buildings, trams, and supermarkets looked eerie and frightening.
Most likely, the locusts came to the Zaporizhzhia region from the bottom of the former Kakhovka Reservoir. However, even in this area, it isn’t exactly new, according to Taras Pushkar, a researcher at the Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
“The last locust outbreaks in the Zaporizhzhia region were in 2002–2003. That coincided with a climatic optimum and the general neglect of farmland in the 1990s. Now, fields along the front line are abandoned and untended. The areas where locusts begin to breed massively simply drop out of sight,” Pushkar says.
For the reserve, the insects didn’t cause real damage – they mostly ate the fast-growing reeds. Agricultural lands south of Zaporizhzhia, particularly in the Kushuhum community, suffered more.
The summer of 2025 in Zaporizhzhia ended with a massive fire on Khortytsia Island.
“This summer, the island experienced one of the largest fires in its history. The first ignition point appeared in the southern part of the island. After it was drained in 2023, the area became a hazardous zone: old plantations, reeds, and deadwood provided easy fuel. The fire spread quickly and mercilessly due to heat, dry weather, wind, and vast areas of dried vegetation,” the Khortytsia National Reserve states.
It wasn’t just the plants that suffered. “There were nesting sites there, for example, herons that nest in trees. Their colony was in the fire zone. It didn’t burn down, but the fire came close to it. We noticed that because the water used to come right up to the trees, but now it’s about 100 meters away, the birds are slowly moving their nests,” Mulenko explains.
According to him, the old deadwood and dry trees would have caused fires sooner or later — if not this year, then the next or the one after.
Ecosystems Disappear
Beyond isolated incidents, researchers observe systemic shifts in Ukraine’s south. The drop in the Dnipro’s water level, combined with overall warming, has changed local ecosystems beyond recognition. What’s suffering most is what humans once created.
Just a few years ago, the southern part of Khortytsia Island was a floodplain zone, but it wasn’t always like that.
“I’ve read ichthyological reports from the 1920s, before the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station was built,” Mulenko says. “There were numerous expeditions back then. They described Khortytsia and wrote that there was no floodplain. It’s something the eye sees, but the mind struggles to grasp: we’re used to thinking of Khortytsia as including wetlands. Now, there are none again.”
According to the State Environmental Inspectorate of the Southern District, around 23 lakes have vanished. Scientists estimate that, by late 2024, only about 10 hectares of Khortytsia’s original 100 hectares of open water remained – small, isolated ponds with an unstable pattern of water flow, which tend either to dry out or become swamps.
Artificial ponds in city parks are also drying up. Professor Oleksandr Rylskyi, head of the ecology and zoology department at Zaporizhzhia National University, says they are disappearing because groundwater levels have dropped – a chain reaction triggered by the loss of water in the Kakhovka Reservoir.
For two years, residents have watched the animals and plants living in these ponds struggle for survival.
“Last summer, in Dubovyi Hai Park, we observed an extreme groundwater drought. You could see it in the small trees, under five years old. They were drying out, lacking moisture,” says Maksym Soroka, scientific coordinator of Dovkola, a citizen science support network. “Things only got worse after that, despite hopes that autumn floods would refill the ponds. They didn’t. The ponds turned into nutrient-rich marshes. Either we find a way to refill them, or we accept that they’ll dry up.”
The Dovkola network and the nonprofit EcoSense studied Zaporizhzhia’s small rivers in 2024 and 2025, after the Kakhovka Reservoir was drained. Soroka warns that if no measures are taken, Dubovyi Hai Park could disappear within 10 years, along with the green zones that relied on artificially high groundwater levels. And that means the loss of their local fauna too.
City officials so far haven’t come up with a plan to address the problem. The municipal company responsible for park maintenance told journalists that the city would need to conduct geological surveys first, but wartime budgets can’t cover them.
Even street trees are dying off. Mulenko explains that plants had adapted to high groundwater levels and developed shallow root systems. Older trees can’t reach water now, and they’re too old to grow new roots. Many of them, such as poplars, have simply reached the end of their natural lifespan. And of course, there’s climate change.
Zaporizhzhia has planted species that don’t belong in Ukraine’s south, adds Rylskyi. “Birch is a swamp tree. When summer temperatures hit 40 Celsius, it can’t survive unless constantly watered. Linden trees are now suffering too – that’s why they’re dying en masse on Sobornyi Avenue. They need watering in July and August, but unfortunately, that’s not happening.”
According to Hlib Zolotarov, head of the environmental safety department of the Zaporizhzhia City Council, the city is developing a new concept for parks and green spaces. It will recommend new types of trees and shrubs adapted to the changing climate — from ginkgo and cypresses to even bamboo — alongside traditional maples.
Life Adapts
While some ecosystems vanish, Zaporizhzhia’s ecologists are witnessing something almost unprecedented — the birth of new biotopes.
A new bank has formed on Khortytsia Island – an unstable area up to 180 hectares in size, constantly shifting with the water level. Here, a young ecosystem is taking shape.
The reserve and local environmental nonprofits are monitoring plant life on these newly exposed lands. By October 2023, around 40 plant species, mostly willow and poplar, were growing there. By May 2025, scientists had recorded around 370 species, now dominated by grasses and perennials.
“Willow and poplar have occupied their niches and are growing. But now we’re seeing herbaceous plants filling in, forming a new type of meadow ecosystem, just like the old Great Zaporizhzhian Meadow that existed before the Kakhovka Reservoir,” Mulenko says.
New habitats are also forming where floodplain lakes once were, now populated by deer migrating from busier parts of the reserve.
These new forests shelter countless birds, produce oxygen for the industrial city, and, according to Mulenko, regulate air temperature and humidity even more effectively than the Kakhovka waters once did.
The Dnipro River is changing too. Last summer, Zaporizhzhia was buzzing with talk about sturgeon returning to the river. “A natural path has reopened from the Black Sea up to the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station – the same route fish followed for millions of years. Now, they’re coming back,” Rylskyi says.
According to Mulenko, it’s not just sturgeon. Herring, once Zaporizhzhia’s main commercial fish before the cascade of dams, have also returned. Local anglers proudly say they’re catching sabrefish again.
From Local Problems to Transboundary Ecology
Nature is healing its wounds, but some consequences are beyond its control. Rylskyi warns that with less water in the Dnipro, the river can no longer dilute the waste discharged into it, making it more hazardous to the environment.
“Polluted runoff from agriculture flows into small rivers and then into the Dnipro. Since the Kakhovka Reservoir has dried up, there’s less volume to dilute it, meaning concentrations of harmful substances are much higher. For Kherson and the delta downstream, this is bad news.”
The Dnipro’s problems ripple outward, affecting the Black Sea as well. In summer 2024, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources published research showing rising levels of pesticides, industrial chemicals, and heavy metals in seawater. While still below legal limits, the concentrations were approaching them.
It’s reasonable to assume that, just like the Dnipro, the Black Sea’s fauna is also suffering, making this not only a national issue but a transboundary environmental crisis.
Environmental damage is still unfolding, and the consequences of what’s happening in Zaporizhzhia reach far beyond one city, or even one country. This front-line city can’t face those challenges alone. Whether it will seek help, and whether it receives it, remains an open question.
Olha Sydorova is editor-in-chief of the Zaporizhzhia Center for Investigative Reporting. This article originally appeared in Incentre in Ukrainian. The present text is a shorter version of the English translation published by Rubryka. Republished by permission.
