Lielupe River Basin Management Plan: Pollution Sources and Characteristics

Abstract

General environmental problems in the Lielupe River Basin since many years have been:

• (a) Transboundary pollution from Lithuania (big cities are situated on banks of small rivers and a big amount of wastewaters violate self-cleaning ability in rivers).

• (b) Diffuse pollution, mainly contributing to eutrophication, since a big part of Lithuanian catchments and region Zemgale in Latvia are high-developed agricultural areas with intensive agricultural production.

• (c) Pollution from point sources, caused by inadequate and insufficient treatment of wastewaters.

• (d) Modifications of rivers due to land reclamation.

• (e) Poor biodiversity of river fauna in practically whole watershed.

• (f) Drinking water doesn’t meet requirements due to local natural peculiarities of groundwater and/or poor condition of pipelines and inappropriate farming practices.

• (g) Only a few landfills have facilities to treat leachate or are connected to a sewerage system.