What floats in the Sea of Azov. Holidaymakers are upset, environmentalists are calm. Increasing uncontrolled discharge of pesticides into the Sea of Azov

Historically, each sea on Earth has its own unique qualities. The Red Sea is famous for its colorful and rich underwater world. The Dead Sea is the saltiest. The Mediterranean and Aegean are recognizable by their crystal clear blue water. The Baltic Sea is rich in amber, and the Black Sea is rich in hydrogen sulfide. Azov sea famous for its depth, or rather, its complete absence.

LAKE OR SWAMP?

It is even surprising how large ships can navigate through the “paddling pool”, which is no more than a million years old, because its maximum depth is about 13-14 m, and the average is only 7-8 m! It is no coincidence that in ancient times Azov was called anything, but not the sea.

The ancient Greeks called it the Meotian swamp (after the name of the first people who inhabited these places, the Meotians). Later, the Scythians and Sarmatians came to the seashore, and its name accordingly changed to the Scythian, and then the Sarmatian lakes. The area of the sea is only 38,000 square meters. km, and the maximum width is 230 km.

Only in Lake Baikal can accommodate 74 Seas of Azov! But Azov also has really unique features, which geographical reference books for some reason are silent about.

THE SPIDER WAGGING A ZENDZIK

The Sea of Azov is one of the few southern seas, which, as a rule, is completely covered with ice in winter. Those who wish to admire the ice rink from horizon to horizon can do this in January-February. In this sense, little has changed since ancient times. “The ice cover there, at the mouth of Lake Meotia, is so strong that in some area in winter the commander of Mithridates won a victory over the barbarians on horseback, fighting on the ice,” argued the ancient geographer Strabo.

But the real miracle of nature is considered to be alluvial sandstone spits up to several kilometers long. It turns out that the Sea of Azov is the world leader not only in the number, but also in the length of such braids. The most famous are ten of them. On the northern coast: Fedotova, Obitochnaya, Berdyansk, Belosaraiskaya, Curve, Beglitskaya. On the east coast - Yeisk and Dolgaya. In the south - Chushka and, of course, the Arabat Spit, which is one of the five largest spits in the world.

According to the most common version, it is believed that the "bricks" of the Azov braids are quartz sand, falling into the sea from the rivers flowing into it. At the same time, the tip of the braids consists exclusively of small shells. The funny thing is that the shell ends of the braids resemble huge hooks.

The locals called them zendziks. It is amazing, but if the braids themselves are relatively constant in their location, then their ends now and then move under the influence of a changeable wind, turning the zenjiki either to the root of the braid, or to reverse side.

Finally, the third feature of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov is the shell rock, which covers the beaches with a white blanket. Some scientists believe that the spits owe their appearance not only to wind and sand, but also to the enormous productivity of self-reproducing shells. Only in the coastal strip of the Temryuk Bay annual growth shells is from 400 to 800 tons per 1 sq. km!

A SEA OF DEAD SHIPS

The Sea of Azov is also famous for the inexplicable loss of ships and crews. And strange phenomena most often occur between the Berdyansk and Dolgaya braids. It seems to sound absurd - well, how can you fall or drown in the shallowest sea in the world? It turns out that this is not at all difficult if the bottom of the reservoir resembles quicksand in its structure. At the bottom of the Sea of Azov, scuba divers are unlikely to find the remains of sunken ships.

After all, absolutely everything that gets there, immediately disappears without a trace. The bottom of Azov, as it were, eats all the objects that touch it. The fact is that a pound of the sea is a viscous silt, diluted with a small shell, more than 5 m thick.

Underwater currents are of particular danger. The press has repeatedly published stories about how vacationers, having moved several tens of meters from the coast into the sea, suddenly realized that they could not move. And after all, the water in these places barely reached their waist. The most popular version of this phenomenon is whirlpools that occur at the end of sandbars at the meeting point of two currents.

Local fishermen willingly share stories from personal experience when their boats twisted and carried away to the open sea. It is not surprising that local authorities forbid vacationers from swimming in zendziks, where most of the tragic cases occur. However, the daredevils cannot be restrained by bans, because the end of the sandy spit, which extends for kilometers into the open sea, is so fascinating that it is almost impossible to resist visiting it.

The most dangerous are the "tails" of the Belosaraiskaya, Berdyansk and Dolgaya sandy spits. Only in the coastal strip of the Temryuk Bay, the annual growth of shells is from 400 to 800 tons per 1 sq. km. km.

During perestroika, the press discussed for a long time the discovery of a ship near the Dolgaya spit, the crew of which had disappeared. The bodies of the dead were then washed up on the opposite seashore. According to investigators, they all became victims of whirlpools and undercurrents when they tried to push the ship aground. It was after this incident that scientists noticed that the Dolgaya and Belosaraiskaya spits are almost opposite each other. The water, moving along the sea and reaching this bottleneck, naturally increases its current.

Little of! The surging wave in the area of the Taganrog Bay, where the famous spits are located, under the influence of the western and south-western wind increases so much that it rises to two meters! Only after the winds subside, the water rushes back to the open sea in a powerful stream.

The author of these lines was amazed when, while relaxing in Yeysk (and this is just the Taganrog Bay), he observed a similar phenomenon with his own eyes. For about three days in a row, the sea stubbornly became shallow, and then over the next three days the water returned. And on the outskirts of the Dolgoi Spit, the author of these lines observed two colliding sea currents, literally breaking into each other.

Local residents claim that the average speed of the Azov currents is quite high - IQ-20 cm / s, however, during storm winds it increases to 1 m / s. Moreover, the strongest currents are observed in the same resort Taganrog Bay.

STORM IN A TEACUP

The Sea of Azov is also famous for its seiches. It is unlikely that this word can say something to a person far from hydrology. Nevertheless, every vacationer who finds himself on the shores of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov should know about this phenomenon. Translated from the language of science into human, seiches are standing waves that form in closed bodies of water. Most often, they are caused by gusts of wind, changes in atmospheric pressure or seismic tremors.

Having suddenly arisen, such a wave literally stands, reflected from the walls of the reservoir. The time of existence of a standing wave usually ranges from a couple of minutes to several days, it rises in height from tens of millimeters to two or three meters.

It turns out that a global geological fault runs along the bottom of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov at a depth of about one kilometer. It creates seismic activity that generates standing waves. The creeping of the bottom layers on each other causes the formation of underwater rivers, which are extremely dangerous for humans.

This is especially true for windsurfers and those who are not averse to swimming at the tip of the Azov spits, because when seiche fluctuations are intensified by storm surge or increased river flow, a sharp rise or fall of water in the sea can occur, and sometimes even a small tsunami!

A similar danger awaits vacationers on Berdyansk, Fedotov, Dolgaya, Yeysk and Obitochny spits. For example, on the Dolgaya Spit, which protrudes 14 km into the sea, in 1983 there was a terrible flood. Fishermen's houses were torn off the ground with terrible force and carried into the sea. Later they were found on the other side, in the Ukrainian SSR. A similar story happened in 2006.

Despite the warning of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the tourists who were resting on the spit did not want to leave the places occupied with such difficulty. As a result, a storm that came unexpectedly tore off about 200 tents. Someone tried to leave in private cars, but in vain. Even the scythe itself was torn into several pieces. The most annoying thing is that it is almost impossible to predict the appearance of seiches in advance, and they occur even with the slightest wind.

HEALING MUD

The Azov braids have their own positive sides are healing muds. On the beach, you can often see an adult, like a person, who furiously digs the coastal sand. It’s as if he is not old enough to play sand castles, but there is no child in the neighborhood. What for? The answer becomes obvious after a few minutes, when instead of sand mixed with shells, lumps of black mud appear on the surface.

Old-timers claim that the mud of the Sea of Azov, alternating in layers with coastal sand, is very healing. For centuries, those in power came to wallow in the mud of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov Russian Empire and neighboring states.

Local mud of sulfide-silt origin is rich in vitamins, enzymes, hormones, and is also an excellent natural stimulant. Under the influence of dirt, many leave inflammatory processes and the skin is younger.

Dmitry TUMANOV

The uniqueness of the waterway

Of all the water arteries washing the external borders of Russia, the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov is the smallest in area. Problems with its ecology affect several European states that have access to the Black Sea, since both reservoirs are directly connected to each other by the Kerch Strait and a network of small channels in the Karkinitsky Bay area. However, it has the greatest economic and environmental significance for Russia and Ukraine.

The main part of tourists chooses the Sea of Azov for their holidays because of the extremely warm water. In some places, the temperature of the upper layers reaches thirty degrees with a plus sign. There is no water body warmer in the summer on our planet. In addition to this interesting indicator, it is also the shallowest, and also the most distant from the ocean, and therefore is characterized as truly continental. According to scientists, it arose not so long ago compared to the rest - only about eight thousand years ago as a result of a spill due to an unprecedented rise in the waters of the neighboring Black Sea.

Former riches of the Sea of Azov

Ecological problems of the Sea of Azov are gradually killing unique world this waterway, which differs from the rest by living in some places freshwater, in others - marine species of plants and fish. All because of the low salinity of the water. Despite all the problems with the pollution of its water area, for a long time the number of fish in Azov was several times greater than in the Caspian Sea. And the advantage in this indicator over the Mediterranean exceeded 160 times. In total, more than a hundred species of fish lived in the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov, most of which were commercially harvested.

Its underwater world was incredibly rich in shellfish. And from the unique mammals, one can single out the Azov dolphin, which has not yet been exterminated by the unfavorable environmental situation, which is also called the harbor porpoise. Some of their individuals live in the coastal strip and serve as an unintentional bait for tourists choosing the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov as a vacation spot. Ecological problems have a negative impact on all living organisms of the main water artery of the area. There is a decrease in the population of many species of fish and their complete disappearance. In addition, the area of the sea itself is decreasing every year. According to some forecasts, in the near future it may disappear altogether.

Stages of disaster

In the 1950s, the rivers flowing into the Sea of Azov experienced a real boom in the construction of hydraulic structures on them. The inflow of fresh water has sharply decreased and the ecosystem of the reservoir has noticeably shaken. Previously, it was beneficially influenced by the coming into the sea with river water ill. But by the beginning of the 2000s, almost all tributaries were blocked. The increased salinity of the water further exacerbated the already considerable environmental problems of the Sea of Azov.

By that time, the transparency of the reservoir had decreased to minimum levels, and in some places it reached zero. In the depths, of little use organisms flourished, causing the "bloom" of the sea. In turn, this led to a mass kill of fish. Trawling has also become uncontrollable, destroying the ecological component of the bottom, where the main spawning grounds for most fish species were located. But the year 2007 brought the greatest damage to the environment, when several tons of sulfur and fuel oil fell into the sea as a result of an accident.

In pursuit of profit

In the second half of the last century, the problems of the Sea of Azov increased due to the commissioning of two industrial giants of the metallurgical and machine-building industries. Factory and factory production in Mariupol and Taganrog, port activities were carried out in violation of environmental standards. The waste from their activities was not properly cleaned and, saturated with chemicals, fell into the sea. Domestic sewage was also diverted there.

But the greatest damage to the nature of the region was caused by the transportation of oil and other products based on it. In this, the environmental problems of the White and Azov Seas are largely similar. Dozens of ships scurry through their expanses every day, the holds of which are filled with dangerous cargo. With frequent accidents, all this "good" gets into water bodies, not only marine, but also coastal flora and fauna die. Biological resources are being devastated. Birds and mammals listed in the Red Book are being destroyed by entire populations. And at the bottom of reservoirs, toxic-dangerous substances accumulate, leading to the destruction of the ecosystem from the inside.

Black business drains

By a certain time, the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov eliminated problems with waste resulting from human activity that fell into its basin in a natural way due to biological plankton. But by the end of the 90s of the last century, the number of enterprises and residential buildings erected along its banks and spread upstream the rivers flowing into the sea led to the accumulation in a rather small space of about 40% of the industrial and agricultural production operating in the Soviet Union.

Natural cleansing of the reservoir came to naught. Waste oil products, mercury, lead, pesticides from coastal enterprises freely flowed into the reservoir, increasing the concentration of biogenic elements and poisoning the ichthyofauna. Ecologists faced the acute issue of solving the problems of the Sea of Azov and ways to solve them in the most short time but these good intentions were not destined to be translated into action. The collapse of the USSR made its own adjustments to the capabilities of the main state, spread over most of the coast - Ukraine. Against the backdrop of the struggle for independence, she had no time for ecology.

Out of range

From the richest in the production of fish living in the reservoir, the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov has turned into an unproductive one in this indicator. Soon there will be nothing to catch at all. Living organisms die in an unequal struggle with rhodanides entering the sea, the content of which in the water exceeds the permissible norms by 12 times. The same is true for elements of the phenol group. The concentration of iron, copper, zinc, nitrogen and other chemical elements in wastewater discharged into the reservoir is several times higher than allowed. Valuable resources are being destroyed and the environmental problems of the Sea of Azov are only exacerbated by this. Another scourge of the ecosystem is sulfur entering the water area, which is reloaded in the ports of Mariupol in last years transgressed allowable rate two million tons. Given the poor equipment of port equipment, it is even difficult to calculate the pollution of the reservoir with this substance. Ecologists do not get tired of sounding the alarm.

There is salvation!

It is still possible to stop the irreversible process of destruction of the remaining resources of the Sea of Azov by introducing a whole range of drastic measures. First of all, it is necessary to minimize the harm from the activities of industrial enterprises and agricultural facilities located in its basin. Some oblige to spend money on the construction of modern treatment facilities, the second - to use for extermination harmful insects and weeds less environmentally friendly means.

And tougher penalties for violating these requirements. The environmental problems of the Black and Azov Seas will help to solve a decrease in the number of ships traffic on them with dangerous goods on board. It is necessary to eliminate trawl fishing, which is prohibited throughout the civilized world, to increase the level of fresh water, to expand the boundaries of specially protected zones in coastal areas. And, of course, to stop the mismanagement of industrial, municipal and household waste into the water area.

Problem Solving Together

More than 20 years ago, during the formation of statehood in Ukraine and in Russia after the collapse Soviet Union, the economic losses from the deterioration of the environmental situation in the Azov Sea basin were presented by politicians and businessmen of both countries as extremely vague. The size of the losses became obvious only after the expiration of time.

Despite political differences, certain structures managed to agree on the resumption of a joint solution to the environmental problems of the Sea of Azov. Briefly, the essence of the fateful agreement can be characterized in the mutual interest of representatives of the environmental departments of the two countries to seek ways to solve problems together. But so far, this activity has not yet yielded significant results.

Shallow, calm and warm Sea of Azov. It would seem, what could threaten those who decided to rest here? It turns out that there are enough dangers, including fatal ones.

Insidious Rifts

Not so long ago, a tragedy happened in the seaside village of Yuryevka, located 50 kilometers from Mariupol. At 20 meters from the shore, where the depth does not exceed one meter, a twelve-year-old boy began to drown. Two strong men came to his aid in time. They pulled the teenager out of the water, but they themselves could not get out. What happened? The surviving boy said that he was playing with a ball in the sea, when suddenly sand began to leave from under his feet, dragging him down. Experts suggested that such an effect was caused by the collision of two currents, which formed a whirlpool - this is not uncommon here.

However, the head of the nature department of the Mariupol local history museum, geologist Olga Shakula believes that the reason is different. According to her, in this area there is a global geological fault between the bedrock slabs. In the course of geological movements, the plates crawl on top of each other, shifting the upper soil layers - this is how cracks appear in the sand, and the water masses leaving them can suck the bather along with them.

radioactive sands

After each storm on the coast of the Sea of Azov, in the regions of Mariupol and Taganrog, black stripes are exposed - this is radioactive thorium. So that it does not frighten vacationers, it is often mixed with sand on the beaches. There is usually little thorium and the dosimeter will be silent, but there are places where the radiation background exceeds the norm by three times and reaches 100 microroentgens per hour.

True, SES doctors reassure - moderate exposure is even good for health. After all, there are specialized clinics where thorium is added to radon baths. Step on the thorium sand and chronic leg pain will go away forever, local doctors promise.

However, you need to keep in mind that the same radon baths are not prescribed for everyone, so if you decide to sunbathe on the beaches of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov, you should seriously consider choosing a place. At the very least, pay attention to the warning signs.

Sliding shores

It has long been noticed that every year the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov wins several meters from the land. First of all, we are talking about high banks, which, as a result of underwashing and heavy rains, gradually slide down, often dragging houses and people with them. But if there are not so many residential buildings at the top, then tourists like to stay under the cliff for the night. If you do not want several tens of tons of sand and clay to fall on you at night, do not pitch tents at the very wall of a steep and high bank.

Azov settling tank

The Sea of Azov is often called a big puddle. Warm and shallow (no deeper than 15 meters), it creates all the conditions for the reproduction of pathogenic bacteria. Of particular danger to vacationers are sewer drains and discharges from industrial enterprises that continuously flow into the Sea of Azov.

Particularly unfavorable should be called the region of Donbass, which is replete with many coastal cities and towns, where treatment facilities not just used up their working potential - they are destroyed.

According to local residents, the Kalmius River poses a particular threat to the ecology of the region, throwing it into the waters of the Sea of Azov hellish mix sewage and household chemicals. The Seversky Donets is in a slightly better position, but together with Kalmius, it poisons the coastal waters of the once popular Soviet resorts more and more every year.

Can't see a single thing

In spite of small size, The Sea of Azov is saturated with marine life - more than 100 species of fish alone. Given the shallow depth, this is the richest sea in terms of the number of inhabitants per unit area. There are very few dangerous creatures here. One of them is the stingray: its poisonous spike, although it does not pose a threat to human life, can deliver very painful sensations. Another unpleasant inhabitant of these places is the eared jellyfish. Direct contact with it will also not entail any serious consequences, but only on the condition that the jellyfish did not come into contact with your mucous membrane.

Meetings with these inhabitants are quite rare, however, the poor transparency of the waters of the Sea of Azov - visibility often does not exceed a meter - increases the likelihood of unwanted contact. In addition, in the muddy waters of Azov, you can easily run into a sharp object - broken bottle or rusty iron. When entering the Sea of Azov, always be vigilant!

Repelling moisture

There is one more feature near the coast of the Sea of Azov, which scares off lovers of sea recreation from it - a humid climate. In the summer months, the humidity level can reach 75%, in winter - 87%, which adversely affects the health of people suffering from heart and respiratory diseases. And in August, blooming ambrosia gives a lot of problems to allergy sufferers.

On the Sea of Azov, the weather is often unpredictable - a storm suddenly replaces complete calm. Sea level change under the influence of wind and atmospheric pressure difference is one of the typical phenomena in the Sea of Azov

In the area of the Kerch Strait, on average, there are 30 days a year with storms of magnitude seven or more. The height of the waves during such a storm is more than 2 meters, and the wind speed exceeds 15 meters per second. Most often it storms in the cold season for about four days a month. As a result of one of these storms, which occurred on November 11, 2007, about 2,000 tons of oil products spilled from sunken tankers in the Kerch Strait. The resulting large-scale pollution of the water area with oil products and sulfur caused a real environmental disaster.

In the fall of 1969, the coastal town of Temryuk found itself in the disaster zone. Krasnodar Territory. Locals remember that in the middle of the night rose strong wind. A huge wave surged into the lowland villages of Verbena and Perekopka. People woke up when the water in the houses was already waist-deep. Only those who lived in the old wooden houses. Through the attics they climbed up and tied themselves to the reed roofs. Entire families were carried and turned over at sea all night on reed "rafts" plucked from their homes. Due to heavy snow, some of the victims froze and died. Helicopters found people in distress only the next day. Residents of new - brick - houses had even worse: they could not open the doors and were captured in a flooded room, where water poured through the doors and windows.

Floods are also frequent on the Dolgaya Spit - in one of the well-known and popular among vacationers corners of the Krasnodar Territory. The spit protrudes into the sea for almost 14 kilometers and is located at an altitude of only 1-1.5 meters above the level of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. It actually fences off the Taganrog Bay from the main part of the sea. Several sandy islands protrude above the gentle slope of the shoal. Braid length in different years changed a lot. Its end is washed out, then washed out, forming new islands.

Floods on Dolgaya occur annually in spring and autumn. During one of them, in the early 1970s, 10 people died in the area. In May 1983, during a storm, the wooden houses of the fishing camp were washed away into the sea, and then they were found on the Ukrainian coast.

On the approach of another flood in August 2006, the Ministry of Emergency Situations warned the tourists who settled down on the spit a day in advance. Then, about 200 tents were pitched on the Dolgaya Spit. But most people refused to leave the beaches. At midnight, a southwest wind rose, poured heavy rain, a storm that came up instantly tore off the tents. In a panic, leaving things, people began to start cars and try to leave. But the spit "broke through", and an island was formed, cutting off tourists from the "main" land. Six people died. Three vehicles remained under water.

THESE INSIDENT SEICHES

Another dangerous situation often occurs in the Sea of Azov. a natural phenomenon- seiches. Seiches are standing waves that occur in closed or partially closed bodies of water under the influence of atmospheric pressure, wind, and seismic phenomena. This term was introduced back in 1890 by the Swiss scientist Francois-Alphonse Forel, who explored Lake Geneva.

In the shallow Sea of Azov, seiche fluctuations (sometimes subtle, sometimes catastrophic) occur constantly. The reason for their appearance is not only a change in wind or atmospheric pressure over the sea, but also waves of storm surges from the Black Sea. The currents arising from seiches set in motion the entire mass of the water of the reservoir and strongly affect its hydrological and hydrochemical parameters: salinity, temperature, oxygen, phosphorus, nitrogen, etc. In the nodes zones (points where the water level almost does not fluctuate ) and narrowing of the seiche coasts can form extremely high current velocities - up to 1.5 meters per second or more. The height of seiche waves can reach 1.5 meters.

As Doctor of Geography Yury Inzhebeikin (Institute of Arid Zones of the SSC) told the author, the Sea of Azov has a peculiar spatial distribution of seiche fluctuations (amphidromic systems). If seiche fluctuations occur against the background of storm surge or increased river flow, then the lower part of the coast is under water. On different banks of the five spits, the seiches form a strong water level difference - from 20 to 80 centimeters. For example, the crest of a seiche wave on the eastern bank of the spit can

Correspond to the lowering of the level (even below average) on the western coast. That is why the flooding of spits in the Sea of Azov sometimes leads to their breakthroughs, and then the seiche wave behaves like a tsunami (the flow velocity is equal to the phase velocity of the wave), which can also lead to human casualties. Similar floods occur on the Obitochnaya, Berdyanskaya, Fedotova, Dolgaya and Yeyskaya spits.

Scientists do not exclude that this could be the mechanism of the flood in August 2006 on Dolgaya. Perhaps it was the seiches of the Black - Azov Seas that at one time turned the Tuzla Spit into an island.

Seiches occur even with a slight wind, and it is very difficult to predict their occurrence. Scientists from the Southern Science Center conducted a study, the results of which will make it possible to predict seiches. They calculated the amplitude and frequency of the seiches of the Sea of Azov. Previously, in different years, the characteristics of seiches were calculated on the Great Lakes in North America, on Baikal, the Baltic, White Seas, etc.

According to RAS Corresponding Member Dmitry Matishov (Institute of Arid Zones of the SSC), in order to ensure people's safety, the "Azov" spits should be equipped with tide gauges - devices that measure and record sea level fluctuations. They are installed on both sides certain places dangerous spits and continuously record water level fluctuations. An uneven rise or fall of the water level for an hour or more on different banks of the spit in the absence of a corresponding local wind can be a sign of the occurrence of a seiche. The data from the tide gauge are processed by an oceanographer or meteorologist. It is clear that a meteorologist does not need to be planted near each instrument. Now it is very inexpensive and easy to connect all these devices in a network, process their measurement data and quickly issue forecasts centrally. Oceanologists recommend equipping beaches at a certain distance from each other with natural or artificial elevations on which people can escape in the event of a seiche.

ABRASION OF ABRASION

Another problem of the Sea of Azov is the abrasion of the coast, that is, the destruction of the coast. This process captured over 60% of the coastline of the Taganrog Bay. The beaches here are extremely unstable, because the coastal cliffs are composed mainly of loam and clay.

Gabions on the Chumbur Spit (Rostov Region), built to protect the coast, did not justify themselves (above). Under the action of the waves, not only the gabions themselves collapsed, but the erosion of the coastline intensified (right).

Spit Dolgaya, Kamyshevatskaya, Yeyskaya, Pavloochakovskaya and Chumburskaya 50-95% consist of loose shell material. The washout is visible to the naked eye. On the Dolgaya Spit, due to storms, an average of 2 meters of the coast is washed away annually, and in 2005 the erosion reached 15 meters. There is data for other items as well. Olga Ivlieva, Professor of the Basic Department of Oceanology at the Southern Federal University, Doctor of Geography, in her works points to erosion on the northern seashore in Veselovo-Voznesenovka (Rostov Region) - an average of 1.5-2 meters per year. In Taganrog, the surge wave strongly destroys the coast, the height of which, with a southwest wind, can reach 2-3 meters. In general, over a hundred years, the coastal strip of the western part of the Taganrog Cape has shifted by 200 meters. On the Yasenskaya Spit in the Krasnodar Territory, according to Krasnodarberegozashchita, the coastline recedes by 2-3 meters per year.

In the 1980s, Rostov scientists Vera Mamykina and Yuri Khrustalev studied the geomorphology of the coastal zone of the Sea of Azov and the sedimentation of the southern seas. They created a network of reference points by which expeditions can track coastal erosion, calculate how many meters are eroded annually in a certain area. This helps to identify the most dangerous places. In the 1990s, observations were suspended. The UNC specialists resumed them in 2004. Now the expeditions of the Center regularly travel to the coast to control coastal erosion. Regular measurements in 2005 showed that the spits in the Taganrog Bay continue to actively degrade.

Storms lead to erosion of the coast, but not only. This is facilitated by a change in the hydrodynamic situation (increase in the frequency of westerly winds), a decrease in the productivity of cerastoderma mollusks (Cerastoderma glaucum), which feed the beaches with valves. The decrease in the productivity of the cerastoderma mollusk occurs due to the desalination of the sea, which, in turn, is associated with an increase in the water content of rivers, an increase in the amount of precipitation, a decrease in evaporation and a reduction in the inflow of salt water through the Kerch Strait, with pollution of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. In addition, the species composition of mollusks has also changed.

In the Temryuk Bay, in beach accumulations, valves of invasive animals new to the area appeared. These are Anadara (Anadara inaequivalvis), Abra (Abra segmentum), Mia (Mya arenaria Linne), resistant to oxygen starvation at the bottom, which is now often experienced by sea inhabitants in this sector. The native species of cerastoderma, on the contrary, does not tolerate oxygen starvation well, which led to a reduction in its habitat area.

The stability of the braid is violated and locals who develop shell material (it is called a shell). Shells are sprinkled on yards in backyards

Farms, it is used in the construction of roads. In the 1970s, shellfish was actively mined on spits for use as a feed carbonate additive in poultry farming. This at one time also led to a strong decrease in the area of the braids.

Is it worth it to artificially strengthen the braids? After all, they can not only quickly erode, but also recover. According to Olga Ivlieva, it is necessary to strengthen the spits not with shell material, but with sand and gravel, using beach-retaining structures. There is already such an experience on the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov. In the early 1990s, a steep, abrasion-prone shore was cut off in front of the Yeisk Spit, and an artificial beach was filled in front of it. Here, boulder-pebble material from one of the local quarries was used ( Krasnodar region rich in these raw materials). Over the past 20 years, the width of the beach has increased to 40 meters and a wonderful recreational area has formed - the Kamenka beach.

There are, however, negative examples as well. On the Chumbur Spit in the Rostov Region, a bank-protective stepped structure was built around the perimeter - gabions (metal mesh frames filled with crushed stone, pebbles or stones), which not only did not strengthen the spit, but, on the contrary, caused even more erosion. For ten years, the width of the beach has decreased from 15 to 3-5 meters. The wave beats against the gabions and, being reflected with greater force, carries away the beach material from the shore.

Professor Ivlieva believes that the situation can be improved. Although the productivity of the native mollusk cerastoderma is decreasing, it is still very high. Therefore, there is hope that the areas of shell deposits in the Eastern Sea of Azov will recover (subject to an increase in the productivity of mollusks), and this will help not only preserve, but also strengthen the beaches on the spits of the East Sea of Azov in the coming years. On some abrasion banks, it may be necessary to build artificial boulder-pebble mounds. It is an expensive business: the cost of large-scale bank protection works can reach 5-10 million rubles per 1 kilometer of embankment. But it's worth it.