At the southern edge of Khortytsia Island, where Europe’s largest river island meets the Dnipro, the ground opens into a landscape no one expected to see again. From a rocky ridge above the village of Malokaterynivka, the view stretches out over mirrored lagoons and dense young willows—trees so tall they already cast long shadows across the silt. This is Velykyi Luh, the Great Meadow, re-emerging from beneath decades of water.

“This is Velykyi Luh,” says Valeriy Babko, a retired history teacher and army veteran, standing at the former shoreline. “It is an ancient, mythic terrain, woven through Ukrainian folklore.”

Long before Soviet engineers transformed it into a reservoir in 1956, Velykyi Luh was an ecological and cultural cradle. The damming of the Dnipro buried its forests, wetlands and historical landscapes beneath 2,155 square kilometers of water—an area larger than New York City.

That changed in 2023, when the Nova Kakhovka dam—controlled by Russian forces—was destroyed during the war. The explosion unleashed a catastrophic flood that devastated communities downstream and left a basin of cracked silt in its wake. Figures for the death toll vary, from dozens to hundreds. Up to one million people lost access to drinking water. But the event also triggered a rare ecological reversal: as the reservoir drained, nature began to return.

A Spontaneous Floodplain

In the immediate aftermath, the reservoir basin resembled a desert. Today, the scene is transformed. Vegetation grows so thick that the earth embankment must be scythed just to reach the water’s edge. Where shells and husks of aquatic life once marked desolation, a vast young forest now stretches toward the horizon.

According to the Ukrainian War Environmental Consequences Work Group (UWEC), the transformation is both rapid and profound. Willow, poplar and wetland grasses now cover the former reservoir floor. Endangered sturgeon have returned to spawn. Wild mammals, including boar, are re-entering the area. Ecologists estimate that some 40 billion tree seeds have sprouted—an explosion of life that could lead to the largest floodplain forest in Ukraine’s steppe zone.

“We are witnessing the emergence of a massive natural floodplain forest system,” says Oleksiy Vasyliuk, co-author of a 2025 UWEC report and head of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group. “It is not a managed project. It is the land itself returning to life.”

The process, researchers say, is an extraordinary case study in how ecosystems respond to the sudden removal of large-scale infrastructure. “Prior to the dam, the Dnipro floodplain here hosted huge oak forests and many types of wetlands,” says Eugene Simonov, international coordinator at Rivers without Boundaries. “We’re seeing a rare, spontaneous reconstitution of a vast riverine ecosystem.”

The Hidden Danger Beneath

Yet even as the landscape regenerates, hidden dangers persist. Over the decades, the reservoir collected vast amounts of sediment, much of it contaminated with industrial pollutants. These fine particles settled across the basin’s floor, absorbing heavy metals from upstream factories and cities.

“All these pollutants were absorbed into these fine particles that were deposited on the bottom,” explains freshwater ecologist Oleksandra Shumilova. “We estimate that it was about 1.5 cubic kilometers of polluted sediments.”

When the dam was destroyed, this sediment was swept across the lower Dnipro region. Heavy metals—like cadmium, lead and mercury—pose long-term threats to ecosystems and human health. Even in small concentrations, they can disrupt endocrine systems, damage organs and accumulate in food chains. “It’s like radiation,” Shumilova says. “It accumulates as it moves up the food web.”

Because the area remains dangerous—riddled with mines and subject to shelling—systematic research is not yet possible. Still, the risks are clear. A 2025 study co-authored by Shumilova, published in Science, warned that the site represents a “toxic timebomb.” Yet in the same report, scientists concluded that 80% of ecosystem functions lost to the dam would be restored within five years, and biodiversity could rebound significantly within just two.

A Crucial Crossroads

The UWEC characterizes the moment as a critical turning point. If left to regenerate, the floodplain could become one of Europe’s largest freshwater ecosystems—on par with the Danube Delta. But that future is far from secure.

The state energy company Ukrhydroenergo has signaled its intent to rebuild the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant. For some, it is a path to energy independence and postwar normality. But environmental experts caution that such a move could erase the forest just as it begins to take hold.

“Rebuilding the dam the way it was would not be a recovery,” says Vasyliuk. “It would be an ecocide. It would destroy a young, spontaneous forest before we even have a chance to understand it.”

Nearly 80% of the affected area lies within nationally and internationally protected zones, including parts of the Emerald Network of conservation areas across Europe. The decision to preserve or rebuild carries environmental, cultural and political weight—not only for Ukraine, but for the continent.

Simonov emphasizes the opportunity: “Restoring natural freshwater ecosystems along a 250-kilometre stretch of the lower Dnipro could be the largest project of its kind in Europe. If Ukraine chooses to protect Velykyi Luh, it won’t just be saving a landscape—it will be choosing to believe in its own future.”

A Living Experiment

Across the floodplain, the natural rhythm of the river is reasserting itself. Reeds rise where concrete once bordered water. Warblers nest. Sturgeon spawn in shallows unseen for 70 years. “It is a big natural experiment,” says Shumilova. “And it is still ongoing.”

What happens next remains uncertain. The war continues. So do the political and economic pressures to restore old infrastructures. But the forest is growing. Fast. And for the first time in generations, Velykyi Luh—land of myth and memory—is alive again.