LITHUANIA

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Lakes, woodlands and nuclear woes

Lithuania is a relatively flat country with an extensive fresh-water network and thousands of lakes that offer unique habitats. But the quality of this water is under pressure from agriculture and inadequate wastewater treatment. Production of energy also causes concerns in this sea-side nation, which is the most nuclear-dependent in the world.

Although it is considered a country of plains, Lithuania's rich variety of scenery offers stimulating contrasts within short distances. Areas of hills and lowlands cover the country, but the hills never get very high. The mean absolute surface altitude is 100 metres above the sea level and the highest point, 294 metres is in the east of the country, away from the sea.

Although Lithuania's coastline with the Baltic Sea is only 99 km long, the country does not lack for waterfront. Rivers account for the basic hydrographical network, and there are 722 rivers of more than 10 kilometres in length. The longest river is the Nemunas, with a length of 937 km. There are over 3,000 lakes in Lithuania, 25 of them with areas of 10 square kilometres or more. The lakes' surfaces alone take up 1.5 percent of Lithuania's territory.

Woodlands cover 28 per cent of Lithuania's territory, with a total area of 1,823,100 hectares, some 32 per cent of which is young forests.

The main pressures on this natural environment come from human needs for energy and food, as well as from poor wastewater systems.

Lithuania get approximately 80 percent of its energy from nuclear power, more than any other country in the world. This power is generated by the Ignalina nuclear plant, which was originally built with the purpose of supplying electricity to the region. The planned capacity of the plant was 6,000 MW, but construction of the third unit was stopped in 1989 due to public protests.

The European Union has been pressuring Lithuania to close the plant due to safety concerns, and Lithuania was warned that the plant could be its biggest potential stumbling block to initiating a discussion on EU membership. On October 5, 1999, the Lithuanian Parliament approved a plan to close the first unit at the plant by 2005. Plans for this partial closure, and the subsequent closure of the whole plant, have been made contingent on expected funding from the European Commission and other international sources.

Probably the biggest pressure on the water resources in Lithuania is pollution of the rivers due to untreated and insufficiently treated wastewater that is discharged into rivers. Many of the water treatment plants in Lithuania are old and of insufficient capability. In 1997, approximately 233 million cubic meters of waste water were discharged to surface water bodies. About 49 percent of this amount was treated to reach the requirements of discharge standards, 34 percent was insufficiently treated and 17 percent was discharged untreated.

Transboundary pollution also has a severe impact on Lithuania's environment. About 75 percent of the country's drainage runs through the Nemunas river and into the Baltic Sea. But only half of the Nemunas's drainage area is in Lithuania. Water quality in the Nemunas is also influenced by sources from Belarus, Poland and Russia.

Another source of pollution in Lithuania is agriculture. In the Soviet era, about 78 percent of the wetlands were drained for agriculture. This drainage is one of the main factors allowing fertilisers to enter the surface water system, and it also reduces a river's natural ability to clean itself.

Aside from hurting water quality, the destruction of the wetlands for agriculture also destroyed valuable natural habitats. Most of the pressure on biodiversity in Lithuania is believed to come from agriculture. In 1996, the number of threatened species in Lithuania included: 19 mammals 67 birds, two reptiles, three amphibians, seven fish and 210 plants.

The pressure from agriculture decreased slightly in the early '90s, when there was a reduction in sown land, and increased slightly in 1995. These fluctuations have been linked to economic changes, and the pressure from agriculture is expected to grow as the nation's economy stabilises.

As far as air quality, according to research data from State Air Monitoring Programme, the air pollution in Lithuanian towns mainly consists of nitrogen dioxide. Most of this pollution comes from road transport emissions, and is especially noticeable around high-traffic areas. But the problem is still relatively small compared to other countries in Europe, and nowhere in Lithuania does the yearly average nitrogen dioxide content exceed maximum allowable concentrations.