Underground Risks: Ground Water Depletion after the Destruction of the Kakhovka Dam as an Underappreciated Legacy of the Ukraine-Russia War

When the Kakhovka Dam was destroyed as part of the war waged by Russia against Ukraine in June 2023, it was clear that this event will have long-term conse­quences. Apart from the immediate damage from wide­spread flooding down­stream, these include: ecological effects (for the now dried up reservoir and the previously irrigated agri­cultural areas), socio­economic effects (water cut-off in major cities, lack of irrigation water for agri­culture in parts of Ukraine, health effects (loss of reliable fresh water supply and sanitation), and global effects (food pricing and food availability). These consequences created further social and eco­nomic instability in an already war-torn region and beyond.

There is one aspect, however, that has not been part of these assess­ments to date: since the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, ground­water extraction has increased for the cooling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as well as for agri­cultural irrigation. Yet, it is unclear to which degree ground­water has been extracted and which long-term conse­quences this changed resource use pattern may have for local communities, agri­culture, as well as eco­systems across the front­line and possibly further from the dam itself. 

The objective of this project is to assess the extent of ground water depletion and its effects on the water security of local communities, agri­culture and eco­systems in the given conflict setting. The multi­disciplinary project is funded from August 2025 to July 2026 by the Leibniz Research Network ‘Environ­mental Crises’ and brings together colleagues from PRIF, the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Hamburg, the Institut für Ange­wandte Geophysik (LIAG, Hannover) as well as external research partners from Ukraine.

Image: Spray pond of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Copyright: Fredrik Dahl (IAEA), CC BY 2.0