Water protection zones geospatial analysis: case stud

This research addresses the ecological risks of using a metric approach to establish water protection zones, focusing on the Irpin River floodplain in Bobrytsia village of Buchansky district at Kyiv region, Ukraine. Currently, local agricultural plots lack legally registered environmental restrictions, leading to intensive plowing near the riverbed that threatens the aquatic ecosystem with pollution and degradation. The study combined regulatory legal analysis and cartographic methods with geographic information systems analysis of remote sensing data in Google Earth Engine. The satellite remote sensing data from 2018 to 2026 were used to evaluate hydrological dynamics, calculating specific soil moisture, vegetation, and open soil indices to analyse floodplain conditions. Spatial modelling revealed that actual seasonal flooding limits and the 2022 dam breach boundaries vastly exceed the standard fifty-meter regulatory coastal protection strip. Despite persistent waterlogging, satellite monitoring from May 2026 confirmed that land users systematically plough these active floodplains as soon as water recedes, causing direct soil and fertilizer run-off into the river. The study concludes that standard linear boundaries are insufficient for river conservation. Ukraine must transition toward flexible boundaries based on actual water spill contours derived from satellite data. Vulnerable, regularly flooded floodplain areas must be legally recorded as restricted zones in the state land cadastre, removed from intensive agricultural cultivation, and preserved as natural meadows or pastures to restore the natural river buffer.