Tendencies of long-term changes in water quality of water bodies in the South of Russia

Based on analyzing long-term (1968–2010) national monitoring data from Rosgidromet and other agencies as well as on research results for the Lower-Don and Kuban’ river basins, we identified observation posts on water bodies with a stably high pollution level and gave a characterization of the spatiotemporal tendencies of its changes. Long-term changes in water quality are exemplified by an alternation of periods of increasing and declining pollution; its level showed a decrease from the period 1980–1990 to the end of the last decade.