Comprehensive assessment of man-caused impact on environment in the regions of Ukraine

The article presents a tool for assessing the impact of man-caused threats on the state of environmental safety of regions of Ukraine, describes the essence of the methodology used in the work for environmental assessment of the territory on the basis of natural (absolute and relative) indices. To calculate the integral regional indices of ecological impact, the statistical information on the main indices of man-caused load on environment according to various types of ecological destructive activities: water sampling, discharges into water, atmospheric emissions and their density, waste, erosion and degradation of soils, damage to forest plantations, environmental costs, has been used. An important advantage of the used method consists in the objectivity based on the use of official data of public institutions. According to the results of calculations of integrated indices of man-caused impact on the environment the grouping and ranking of the regions of Ukraine has been carried out. The city of Kyiv is the most polluted region of Ukraine, its integral index exceeds 35. Very high man-caused impact on the environment is carried out in such regions as Lviv, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhia, Ivano-Frankivsk. The ecological situation in Ternopil, Rivne, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Sumy, Khmelnitski, Odesa regions is also alarming. Relatively small man-caused impact is observed in Transcarpathian, Chernivtsi, Zhytomyr, Volyn regions. Calculations of regional indexes of impact have shown that the greatest contribution to their value is made by the following indices: emissions of pollutants into the air from stationary sources of pollution per square kilometer and emissions of pollutants into the air from stationary sources of pollution per person. Other indices do not have a statistically significant impact on the integral index. The conclusions are formulated and recommendations for making the substantiated decisions on the reduction of man-caused impact on the territory of regions of the country are suggested