THE INFLUENCE OF THE ANTHROPOGENIC FACTOR ON THE BLACK SEA COAST WITHIN THE ODESSA REGION
Authors: Vykhovanetz G. V. , Organ L. V. 
Published: August 2023

Problem Statement & Purpose. The city of Odessa is the center of a large industrial and port agglomeration on the northwestern coast of the Black Sea between Cape Karabush and Sanzheyskiy Cape. Until the foundation of the seaport and the city, the Black Sea shores and estuaries almost always existed in a natural state, except for local small areas located in temporary fishing, military, wandering sites. But from the end of the 18th century, the first buildings and transformations of natural slopes began, which began to significantly change the surrounding nature of the coast and coastal land, because «the history of the development of Odessa is the history of the fight against abrasion landslides». These and many other authors (A. M. Drannikov, G. M. Zub, E. E. Kitran, N. A. Khrennikov, I. Ya. Yatsko and others) testified about the general appearance, morphology and dynamics of natural coastal landslides in the period up to the end of the 40s of the XX century. It is the consequences ofanthropogenic influence and their consideration, analysis and current situation on the Odessa coast of the Black Sea that is the purpose of this work.
Data & Methods. The actual materials of this work were obtained by the authors over the course of decades in the area between Capes Lanzheron and Bugovo on the Odessa coast. Buildings to protect the coast from destruction were instrumentally studied. Two leading groups of coastal marine research were used as the main ones: route-expeditionary and stationary. Their office processing included the use of cartographic, graphical modeling, mathematical statistics, geographical comparison, water and sieve analysis, geomorphological leveling, etc. For comparisons, the materials of Yu. D. Shuisky, I. P. Zelinskiy, D. Ya. Bertman, A. R. Shuvalov, A. V. Kisselis.
Results. The increase in anthropogenic pressure on the natural system of the Black Sea coast within the Odessa area forced us to carry out additional studies of the Odessa coastal defense complex. It is located between the Langeron Cape in the north and the southern flank of Bolshoy Fontan Cape, for about 12.5 km. The named complex changed the coast very much, there was a strong influence of  anthropomorphogenesis. At the same time, designers and builders were guided by a more perfect natural scheme of sediment distribution in the sphere of action of the North-West along the coastal sediment flow. The artificial transformation of the Odessa coast has led to the emergence of several types of anthropogenic landforms instead of natural ones. Coastal protection and other structures are represented by surface, intra-slope and underwater, longitudinal and transverse, positive and negative, sedimentary, concrete, reinforced concrete, metal, high, low for various purposes, etc. They correspond to a special classification. The effectiveness of the introduction of hydraulic structures is ensured by their functionality. The main property is the ability to extinguish and disperse the energy of sea waves with a loss of 10 to 60%. The structures lead to the loading of the shear tongue, the diversion of groundwater, the prevention of abrasion of the subslopes from storm impact, and they have a recreational and ecological purpose.
Wave action on artificial sandy beaches, on their significant vertical and horizontal deformations, is accompanied by sediment loss. Wave processing of sediments provides the development of an equilibrium profile that occurs in different stages: initial transformation of the shape, formation of sand sizes, very fast transformation during the first 1–3 years and slow changes during subsequent repair backfilling. At the same time, the range of deformations is large, very close to natural, despite the surrounding structures.