ANGEL’S WINGS MOLLUSC IN THE DANUBE DELTA AND STRONG LINKAGE OF JOINT BLACK SEA SURVEYS TO JOINT DANUBE SURVEYS IN UKRAINE

On 29th of June in frame of Danube Day water managers from all over Ukraine at national and regional levels, research institutes, NGOs and local communities took part in the trip to 0 km (where Danube enters the Black Sea) and learned about the impact of Danube at the Black Sea.

There at 0 km of the Danube, an unique mollusc was found by Institute of Hydrobiology of Ukraine, called Angel’s wings. Mollusc barnea is one of the ecological sentinels as it reacts rapidly on the pollution of the Black Sea, mostly by nutrients. If one finds its shell at the coast (normally limestone or clay) it indicates that the mollusc lives here and therefore the environmental status of the Black Sea is good, as its shell is very fragile and cannot sustain long. Because of the strange characteristic structure of the valves it got called “Angel’s wings”.

Presence of this mollusk shows the improvement of the environmental situation in the Danube delta.

In the same time, EMBLAS project took part in Joint Danube surveys, where a special attention was paid to the link between Joint Black Sea surveys, organized by ICPDR and Joint Black Sea surveys arranged in frame of EMBLAS-Plus project. Taking into account that both surveys will use harmonized monitoring methodology, this will allow obtaining a comprehensive picture of the impact of Danube at the Black Sea.

The Danube Day and Joint Black Sea surveys were organized by the State Agency of Water Resources of Ukraine, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine jointly with Kiliya local authorities, the EU project “European Union Water Initiative plus for Eastern Partnership” and the EU-UNDP project “Improving Environmental Monitoring in the Black Sea: Selected Measures”.