Kakhovka Dam breach in Ukraine caused economic, agricultural and ecological devastation that will last for years
Crops in fields and orchards in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia region were inundated, then left to shrivel after the water drained.
- Crops in fields and orchards in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia region were inundated, then left to shrivel after the water drained.
- We are a U.S. political scientist with research expertise on the post-Soviet region and a Ukrainian economist who studies agriculture.
- While the long-term effects of the dam break are difficult to calculate, we believe that it will have a lasting impact on the climate of southern Ukraine.
- Agricultural production could be reduced for years to come, with impacts that ripple through supply chains and affect food security around the world.
A fertile farming region
- Local villages and towns came to depend on water and electricity from the dam and its reservoir.
- Some 545,000 acres (220,000 hectares) of arable land in these two regions are irrigated, including over 20% of Kherson’s farmland.
Flooded fields, toxic water
- Valuable perennial crops that relied on irrigation infrastructure fed by the reservoir will be flooded and then parched.
- Farther downstream, the lower Dnieper, Southern Bug and Inhulets river basins have been polluted, imperiling agriculture and drinking water for southern Ukraine.
- During the dam breach, 150 tons of oil leaked out, and at least 17 gas stations have been flooded.
After the flood, water shortages
- Most importantly, without water from the reservoir, the fields of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea will dry out.
- Coastal towns on the Sea of Azov, most importantly Berdyansk, have lost their main source of drinking water.
- Without the Kakhovka Reservoir, however, Crimea is unlikely to receive irrigation water for at least a decade.
Fewer exports, higher prices
- Southern Ukraine’s sunflower seeds, soy and cereals are major ingredients for industrially processed foods and livestock feed.
- They provide the proteins and lipids that are the building blocks of the 21st-century diet.
- Global food commodity prices shot up hours after the dam broke, as global grain traders anticipated food commodity shortages.
- And so what we are going to see is a huge impact on global food security.”
An uncertain future
- Loss of the Kakhovka Dam is the latest blow to a region that has suffered heavily during the war.
- NASA satellite images show crops planted in 2022 that were never harvested.
- In 1941, Joseph Stalin ordered Soviet troops to destroy the predecessor of the Kakhovka Dam to slow the advancing German army.