Winter expedition to sample snow and water from the tributaries of Lake Baikal from 15 to 21 February 2021

The expedition within the framework of the programme “Study of the Role of Atmospheric Deposition on Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecosystems of the Lake Baikal Basin, Identification of Air Pollution Sources” and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research grant was carried out from 15 to 21 February 2021 o sample snow around large cities of the Irkutsk Region (Angarsk, Irkutsk and Shelekhov), industrial settlements of Buryatia(Selenginsk and Kamensk) and along the directions of highways (Irkutsk-Listvyanka, Irkutsk-Goloustnoye and Irkutsk-Selenginsk) as well as to sample water from the tributaries of Southern Baikal.

The aim of the expedition was to determine the accumulation of inorganic and organic pollutants on the underlying surface in the cities and industrial settlements of the Southern Baikal region in the winter of 2020 and 2021; to identify the pattern of distribution of atmospheric deposition from sources in areas of the Baikal natural territory with different anthropogenic load; to analyse the chemical composition of water in the tributaries of Southern Baikal during the winter baseflow. During the expedition, 137 snow samples, as well as 12 water samples from estuarine areas of the Utulik, Solzan, Khara-Murin, Snezhnaya, Pereyomnaya, Mishikha, Selenga, and Krestovka rivers and the Kamenushka, Bolshaya Cheremshanka and Malaya Cheremshanka streams, were taken.