Minimum Water Consumption in the Rivers of the Kaliningrad Region

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to study the minimum 30-day water fl ow on the rivers of the Kaliningrad region, taking into account recent years and compare them with data collected during the 20th century. Materials and methods. The source material is the series of minimum fl ow rates of the rivers of the Kaliningrad Region according to observations at gauging stations for the period from 1901 to 1980 and from 2008 to 2020. The work used standard methods of statistical data processing in the Mathcad environment. Results and discussion. To assess the similarity of the series of minimum water discharges, the pair correlation coeffi cients were calculated for six rivers of the Kaliningrad region (the Zlaya River, the Mamonovka river, the Instruch River, the Pregolya River, the Deima River, and the Matrosovka River). The dependence of the modules of the average multi-year minimum 30-day water discharges of the rivers of the Kaliningrad Region on the catchment area is constructed. Regional dependences of the minimum 30-day water discharges for very small streams and small rivers are proposed, which can be used in the absence of systematic hydrometric observations. Conclusion. For the period from 2008 to 2020, the increase in the minimum 30-day water fl ow in comparison with the data obtained for 1901-1980 is insignifi cant, and a decrease in this indicator was noted on the Mamonovka River. On the territory of the Kaliningrad Region, the patterns of formation of minimum water discharges on rivers have not changed signifi cantly over the past 120 years of observations. According to observations of the 20th century, regional dependences of the minimum 30-day water discharges are proposed, which diff er markedly for rivers with a catchment area of 50 km2 < A < 450 km2 and 450 km2 < A < 2500 km2.