30 October 2025

Specialists from the Middle Volga branch of VNIRO have begun large-scale autumn studies of water bodies

At the end of October this year, an expedition aboard the research vessel Vasily Vasiliev, carried out by specialists from the Saratov branch of the Russian State Research Center "All-Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography" (VNIRO), in the waters of the Saratov and Volgograd reservoirs, concluded.
 
Immediately after its conclusion in Volgograd, a research team from the Middle Volga branch boarded the vessel. They will conduct scheduled autumn expeditions to four reservoirs in the Volgograd region, one after the other.
 
During work on the transit waters of the Volga-Don Shipping Canal (the Karpovskoye, Bereslavskoye, and Varvarovskoye Reservoirs), branch specialists will conduct hydrobiological studies to collect material from the main groups of aquatic organisms that form the food supply for fish (phytoplankton, zooplankton, and zoobenthos). They will also conduct hydrochemical studies of the water, along with measurements of certain hydrological and physicochemical characteristics of the reservoirs (depth, temperature, water transparency, oxygen content, electrical conductivity, and pH), to assess the anthropogenic and abiotic factors affecting the functioning of the reservoirs.
 
The research team will then continue monitoring the size and composition of commercial fisheries catches in one of the largest reservoirs in southern Russia—the Tsimlyansk Reservoir.
 
The obtained scientific data will help assess the current state of the aquatic habitat and the resource potential of the studied water bodies.
 
The active use of a research vessel for comprehensive studies of aquatic biological resources and their habitats, including state monitoring, allows for the expansion of the scientific data necessary for accurately determining total allowable catches and recommended harvest volumes for commercial fisheries, ultimately leading to an increase in these indicators.
 
VNIRO Press Service