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Lake Baikal: Current Environmental Problems

is supported by the high content of oxygen in baikalian water, which is beneficial both for chemical as well as biological oxidation of pollutants. Synthetic organic substances and heavy metals are adsorbed by particulate matter, by surface of bacteria, protozoa, and algae, by feeding mechanisms of filtering organisms of benthos (sponges) and, especially, zooplankton. Part of the substances, adsorbed by plankton organisms, is included in trophic chain after eating their carriers by other organisms of plankton and nekton. In the end they are sedimented to the bottom with animal bodies and fecal pellets. At the bottom they are partly buried in bottom sediments, and partly continue movement along the trophic chains of coprophages, necrophages, and detritus-consumers. All these substances end

their movement in terrestrial ecosystems, or, mostly, in bottom sediments.[35,37,44]

It is necessary to emphasize—although there is some contamination (Table 5) of lake Baikal, nevertheless, that the water of lake Baikal remains the purest among the natural lake waters and is drinkable even in the regions of local pollution.

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CONCLUSION

We have analyzed the consequences of anthropogenic influence on the lake ecosystem with mathematical model, taking into account input of nutrients, toxic, and non-toxic compounds at the level of end of 1980s to the beginning of 1990s, when industry and agriculture were more powerful than they are now. According to predictions of this model[44–51] we can wait for decrease of biomass of underice phytoplankton and increase of summer phytoplankton, some decrease of under-ice and increase of summer zoo-

plankton. These predictions were supported by observations between 1990 and 2000.[5–7,11]

It is necessary to note that global climate change caused a decrease of share of large-cells phytoplankton, increase of share of small-cells phytoplankton, and mass development

of some groups of phytoplankton (cladocerans[51]). All of these processes are described for Baikal.[8–10,12–14]

We must emphasize the predicted consequences of chemical pollution of the lake and possible shifts caused by climate change are practically the same. In both cases

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we await the growth of small-cells phytoplankton share, strengthening of summer phytoplankton, cladocerans, and cyclops development. The picture observed coincide with this. Therefore, today we cannot select one of the explanations of observed picture—is this consequence of local and regional anthropogenic impact in the form of pollution the result of global climate change, or the effect of natural oscillating processes? We can say that lake Baikal obviously is withstanding quite successfully to current anthropogenic impact due to its high self-purification potential, based on its morphometry (volume, depth, relation of water surface area to depth), hydrophysical and hydrochemical features (saturation of water with oxygen to maximal depths, low starting concentrations of chemical components), and functioning of its ecosystem (Fig. 4).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Authors are grateful to program of strategic development of Irkutsk state university for 2012–2016, supported this research with grant #R212-IB-001.

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