Belarus: Astravets Nuclear Power Plant as a Source of Long-Term Water Risk in the Vilija Basin
Upstream nuclear plant raises transparency concerns and long-term water risks for Lithuania’s river basin
How Belarus and its political context influence policy and the environment in downstream Lithuania
Problem formulation
The Astravets Nuclear Power Plant (BelNPP), located in Belarus near the Lithuanian border (some call it Ostrovets, as they translate the name from Russian, since Belarus has two state languages), is situated within the basin of the Vilija River, which flows into the Neris in Lithuania. This makes the plant not only an energy infrastructure facility but also a potential source of transboundary risk for a water system connected to the territory of the European Union.
Materials from the Save Neris–Vilija campaign explicitly highlight that the Vilija–Neris basin connects the Belarusian upstream section with the Lithuanian downstream section, and that any contamination events within this system would propagate downstream — through the Neris, the Nemunas, and ultimately into the Baltic Sea. In this context, the presence of nuclear infrastructure in the upstream part of the basin increases the importance of transparency in monitoring, data availability, and trust in transboundary information on water conditions.
An additional risk factor is that Lithuania has, for several years, officially emphasised unresolved concerns related to the safety of the BelNPP project and the need for continuous international monitoring. In particular, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania has stated that issues related to environmental impact assessment remain open, and that Belarus has not provided comprehensive responses to all concerns raised by Lithuania. While this does not demonstrate actual water contamination, it does confirm the existence of a long-standing and internationally recognised dispute regarding transparency, impact assessment, and risk oversight.
Taken together, this creates a situation in which the potential influence of high-risk infrastructure upstream on a transboundary water system is not accompanied by a fully transparent, independently verifiable, and publicly trusted monitoring regime.
Risk for Lithuania and WFD implementation
This creates a risk for the implementation of the WFD in Lithuania. As a downstream country, Lithuania is required to assess the ecological and chemical status of water bodies at the scale of the entire river basin. However, the presence of a nuclear facility in the upstream part of the basin, combined with ongoing concerns regarding monitoring transparency and the completeness of international oversight, limits the ability to conduct a comprehensive assessment of potential transboundary impacts on water quality.
The issue is not limited to hypothetical accident scenarios but extends to a broader question: whether Lithuania can credibly confirm the sustained achievement of good chemical status if one of the most sensitive and potentially high-impact sources of risk is located upstream and remains subject to ongoing international concerns regarding transparency and supervision.
Why this is a systemic problem
The problem is systemic in nature and driven by the following factors:
the location of the BelNPP within the transboundary Vilija–Neris basin
the potential downstream propagation of contamination within a single hydrological system
long-standing international concerns regarding the adequacy of impact assessment and safety oversight
the absence of a fully transparent and independently verifiable monitoring regime trusted by downstream stakeholders
Thus, the issue is not a proven case of contamination but a structural vulnerability of a transboundary basin in which a high-risk facility is located upstream and affects Lithuania’s ability to fully demonstrate compliance with WFD environmental objectives.
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