Modeling of water pollution in the basins of Arctic rivers

Abstract

The goal hereof is mainly to model water pollution in the Arctic rivers on the basis of known natural and anthropogenic data on the drainage basins. The quality of water in rivers depends on the amount of pollutants entering the drainage basin and on the latter’s ability to convert such substances. This paper investigates merging these two components into a single integral model by finding a balanced system of inputs. After reviewing the literature and theorizing on the concept, the model was tested on the river systems of the European part of the Russian Arctic. The experiments proved the integral river pollution model to be objective. The resulting integral indices show the extent of anthropogenic impacts on river waters. The use of integral indices in conjunction with hydrochemical ones gives insight into how far anthropogenic sources of chemicals affect the composition of river waters.