Reappearance of the Dnieper river after the destruction of Kakhovka dam

The Kakhovka Reservoir was created in 1956. As the level of the reservoir drops at a staggering rate of two meters per day, it is now possible to see the ancient river reappear in satellite images.

I have georeferenced a 1943 German military map published by Defense Express in their article « 1943 Maps Show What Ukraine’s Kakhovka Reservoir Will Look Like When the Waters Settle Down » to verify if the Dnieper returns to its original state before the dam was constructed.

The former river is also visible near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. According to the French Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety the dikes of the cooling pond can withstand a Dnieper level of 10 m in the vicinity of the power plant. The level reached 11.8 m on June 9. It should be already well below 10 m by now but the cooling pond remains full.

The lake water level can be monitored by satellite altimetry in Theia’s HydroWeb website. However, the data are no longer updated due to the lack of water to reflect the signal emitted by the altimeter.

Update on June 21, with a new Sentinel-2 image acquired on June 20:

Top picture by Katerina Polyanska – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32883338