13 villages with more than 12,000 inhabitants in total are located within the vicinity of the park. One of them, the Vereshchytsia village with about 1,000 inhabitants, does not have drinking water supply. The villagers were using their own wells but after the groundwater level has fallen dramatically, they started to drill additional wells. This caused further decrease in groundwater levels.
The hydrological situation was also complicated after an artificial dam on the Vereshchytsia river was built. As a result, the hydrological regime of the wetlands in the park, which are below the village along the Vereshchytsia river, has been significantly disrupted. This is why addressing the issue of centralized water supply to the village community, in addition to its positive socio-economic impact, will significantly improve the conservation of the park’s biodiversity, which this year was included in the Roztochchia Biosphere Reserve, under the auspices of UNESCO.
The village community has previously received a resolution to allocate funds from the region’s budget for the construction of the water supply network. The prerequisite for such allocation is the development of a formal engineering project, which, under current law, cannot be financed from the regional budget. Therefore, the SNPA project supported such designing and examination work. Currently, the development of a project has been completed and it was approved during the ecological and architectural examination. The project was provided to the chairman of Ivano-Frankivsk settlement council at the beginning of January.