Great Meadow, Ukraine

The Great Meadow as it appears on Schubert's 19th-century maps: The Great Meadow was located on the Black Sea Lowland and surrounded by the Pontic–Caspian steppe. It was around wide and long. It originally consisted of a system of interconnected rivers and tributaries of the Dnipro, reed-covered lakes and swamps, meadows, shrubs, and, in some places, high sandbanks. The Ukrainian Shield formed the bedrock of the Great Meadow 1.9–2 billion years Before Present (BP). Volodymyr Kubijovyč indicated the Great Meadow formed within depressions in the shield, and on crystalline massif slopes. Both the banks of the Dnipro were forested. The Great Meadow was covered with floodplains and forests containing aspen, alder, willow, and oak. Ancient oak trees grew on those islands that rarely flooded. As the eastern steppes had little or no water, and a lack of shelter for animals, the Great Meadow was abundantly inhabited by hares, foxes, deer, wild pigs, martens, and wolves. Tarpans (free-ranging horses) lived on . The Great Meadow was the most prominent natural forest in the steppes of Ukraine, that was an important feeding area for migrating birds. The trees provided shelter for birds, who were preyed upon by falcons, kites, and eagles. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote of the Dnipro in the 5th century BC: {{Blockquote In the 5th4th centuries BC, the area experienced regular droughts. Rivers levels reduced, and the tributaries of the Dnipro became very shallow. A thousand years later, frequent precipitation acted to raise river levels again, and peat bogs and humus were created. ==Etymology==

The Russian word is equivalent to the Ukrainian (feminine, plural – ), or . The word describes an area of grassland along a river that is periodically flooded. A separate word——was used in Ukrainian, distinct from the concept of , to describe a regularly-flooded forest. The term came to mean an ancient floodplain forest that surrounded a Cossack stronghold (sich).{{refn|1=Meadows prevailed in the area before the 1950s, but it is trees that are returning now that the waters have disappeared. The Great Meadow is sometimes inaccurately used to denote the area previously covered by the Kakhovka Reservoir, or that part of it that is currently turning into a young forest. ==History==

The Great Meadow has been inhabited since ancient times, with archaeological finds dating back to the Bronze Age, the Scythian period, and the Kievan Rus'. It is a landscape that embodies the concept of Motherland for Ukrainians. The landscape is particularly notable due to its historical association with the Cossacks. In 1374, after a drought led to famine throughout the region, Mamai's forces left the Great Meadow and resettled in Crimea. The Great Meadow provided more favourable conditions for settlers than the steppe, and by 1774, over 100,000 Cossacks lived in the Great Meadow. The area was used for agriculture, raising livestock, and as a source of wood, and the dense forest served to protect the Cossacks from external threats. Honey was abundant, and a lot of honey and beeswax was exported. The Cossacks were the first Europeans to plant forests, which they planted as a means of defence. and the Kakhovka Reservoir—the largest in Ukraine at that time—was created. Approximately long and wide with a volume of , and a total area of , its creation caused irreversible damage to the Great Meadow, which covered almost the entire area, In 2006, the Grand Meadow National Nature Park was created from small islands and coastal areas of eastern Kakhovka Reservoir in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and similarly the was formed in 2019 in right-bank Kherson Oblast. Russo-Ukrainian war In June 2023, the Kakhovka Dam was destroyed, and the reservoir began to drain away. Archaeological looting became widespread soon after the reservoir was emptied, and the draining of the reservoir led to the fish population dying out, totalling an estimated 11,400 tons of dead fish. Tree stumps from trees that grew before the dam was built are now visible, and rust areas along the edge of the current bank may be evidence that iron particles are emerging from groundwater. According to the Ukrainian historian Oleksandr Alfiorov, "…we still cannot assess the consequences of over 70 years of water domination in it. Now, we can see this relief, it is obvious that we will also see burial mounds, but we cannot yet assess, for example, the degree of damage and siltation of the territory. There is no doubt that most of the archaeological monuments were destroyed when the Kakhovka Reservoir was created." ==Regeneration following the breaching of the Kakhovka Dam==

The destruction of the dam coincided with the time when poplar and willow trees begin to disperse their seeds. The area will go through ecological succession that, in at least 30 years, will result in the formation of a mature forest. This large-scale phenomenon allows the study of the development of forest ecosystems in river valleys that was not possible before. Left alone, the trees would continue to grow tall, but not at such a rate. Manyuk described the water levels as constantly fluctuating according to the seasons. ==Notes==