CURRENT ISSUES IN HYDROLOGICAL TERMINOLOGY AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF WATER BODIES IN THE CONTEXT OF UKRAINE’S WATER LEGISLATION
Abstract
As a result of the analysis of legal issues arising in the implementation of the provisions of the Water Code of Ukraine concerning the protection regime of water fund lands, it has been established that these issues are largely caused by the ambiguity of hydrological terminology and the absence of statutory definitions for certain hydrological terms used in, or omitted from, the Water Code. In particular, this includes such terms as “river”, “small watercourse”, “stream”, “low-water period”, “slope gradient”, “lagoon”, “river estuary”, etc. The application of the linear approach to determining the outer boundary of waterside protection zones requires the establishment of fixed reference values for their width and for slope gradient. However, the low-water level, which under the Water Code serves as the inner boundary of waterside protection zones, is not a constant value and may vary considerably both from year to year and during the same low-water period. Furthermore, establishing its long-term mean value is practically impossible in the places where long-term hydrological monitoring data for rivers are unavailable. Another reason for legal problems in establishing the boundaries of waterside protection zones is the absence in the Water Code of a classification of natural and artificial water bodies, in particular, the lower limit of the catchment area of small rivers, as well as the area or depth of lakes and ponds. Based on the conducted research, amendments to the statutory river classification of the Water Code have been proposed, along with a classification of lakes according to their water surface area. These proposals would provide a differentiated approach to determining the width of waterside protection zones for specific categories of small watercourses and water bodies. Proposals have been made for changes and additions to the glossary of hydrological terminology given in the Water Code of Ukraine. For the practical implementation of new methodological approaches to determining the boundaries of waterside protection zones, it has been proposed to develop separate regulatory and methodological recommendations that would take into account the peculiarities of the hydrological regime of the river and the morphology of the riverbed.
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