Last year's flood in Western Ukraine, which not only caused enormous material damage, but also claimed human lives, did not force Ukrainian officials to pay more attention to the implementation of flood and landslide measures. Although at present in the western region of Ukraine, as well as in Crimea, work continues on the restoration of destroyed and damaged roads, bridges, and strengthening of the banks. True, not in the volumes that are needed: as of April of this year, work has been stopped at more than 600 objects in the Carpathian region. The main reason is the lack of funding.
According to the State Committee for Water Management of Ukraine, for the program "Prykarpattya" with the necessary 121 million hryvnyas. allocated only UAH 40 million. These funds promised to build dams and storage tanks in the Lviv region.
For the implementation of the program "Tisa" (Transcarpathia) from UAH 200 million. also allocated 40 million hryvnyas, however, another 50 million hryvnyas. promised to give from the Stabilization Fund.
And out of 150 million hryvnias required this year for measures to prevent floods, they promise to allocate only a third of the amount.
Thus, according to the plan, 470 million hryvnias are required for all three directions this year. We spent about that much last year, but the lion's share then went to the Carpathian region. According to the state budget, they seem to have allocated UAH 180 million. But, as noted by the companies supplying building materials, in fact, since last year, they have not been paid for the materials and services provided.
In April, experts estimated the government's debt to contractors at more than UAH 120 million. Today experts say that this figure is already much higher. This means that, having exhausted their resources and suspending work at the facilities, the contractors will be forced to condemn the population of the affected areas to be left alone with the water element again.
In the meantime, individual companies continue to supply materials, and contractors continue to restore and build road facilities. Moreover, specialists are now paying great attention to the use of modern technologies.
Bank protection in Western Ukraine
At the moment, in the Chernivtsi region, work is underway to strengthen the banks of mountain rivers, on which there are public roads, as well as on the approaches to bridges. Strengthening is carried out through the construction of retaining walls of two types - capital with drilling of piles more than 10 m underground and the further erection of concrete protective structures.
Special attention is paid to gabion structures during bank protection.
By the way, such designs have been used in world practice for over 100 years. First of all, let's figure out what gabions are. The Big Encyclopedic Dictionary gives the following definition: gabion (from French gabion) is a metal mesh box filled with rubble, used in regulatory and coastal protection structures. The engineering industry gives a more detailed description of the gabion structure, meaning a gravity structure - a spatial box structure consisting of a double-twisted galvanized mesh filled with natural stone. Such blocks are tied with wire, resulting in a flexible wall that easily filters water, which allows you not to fear hydrostatic pressure, and at the same time firmly strengthens the landslide. Gabions compare favorably with analogs made of concrete and reinforced concrete: they do not require a special base and foundation, are erected quickly, at any time of the year, and are able to perceive sudden and / or localized loads caused by large precipitation or soil deflections. When the structure begins to deform, the destruction of the gabion structure itself does not occur. The structure retains its structural rigidity and, over time, adapts to the movement of the ground, reacting to this with minor deflections.
The efficiency of gabion structures does not decrease, but increases over the years, since over time, soil compaction occurs in the voids of gabions and vegetation begins to grow. Due to the fact that gabion structures do not interfere with the growth of vegetation and merge with the environment, they are natural building blocks for decorating the landscape.
Bank protection and channel straightening works, protection of slopes and slopes from erosion processes, reinforcement of low-bearing soils, erection of retaining walls and protection of road and railroad embankments, bridge supports, protection from rock falls - this is not a complete list of possible applications of gabions.
