Lake Ladoga is the largest lake in Europe and, with its surface of 17,891 km2 and volume of 837 km3, it ranks among the top fifteen of the world's freshwater bodies. The ecological condition of Lake Ladoga is of concern to several million people living in its surroundings. There is evidence of water quality degradation and gradual eutrophication of the lake during the past decades; on the other hand, pollution control measures have improved the situation in many of the most polluted sites near industrial effluent sources. The first international Lake Ladoga Symposium was held in St. Petersburg on 22-26 November, 1993. The symposium was attended by 160 scientists, and about half of the papers presented at the symposium have been edited for this book. The contributions are grouped under the following headings: Present state of Lake Ladoga; Hydrodynamics of Lake Ladoga and other large water bodies; Water quality and pollution; Ecological studies of Lake Ladoga biota; History of Lake Ladoga and rates of change in its environment; Research methods for large lakes. Besides providing up-to-date information on the state of the lake, the papers deal with studies of many other large lakes of the cold-temperature zone and the general problems and methods of large lake research. Furthermore, the book is a valuable source of reference to the voluminous Russian limnological literature.

Aimed at researchers, students and all interested in history, this multidisciplinary study offers a spectacular view of the history of Europe’s largest lake. Adopting the lens of coastal history, this edited volume presents the development of the vast Great Lake’s catchment area over a long-time span, from archaeological traces to Viking routes and from fishery huts to luxury villas of the power elite. It reflects on people’s sensory-historical relationships with aquatic nature, and considers the benefits and harms of power plants and factories to human communities and the environment. The focus of the study is on the central and northern parts of the shores of Lake Ladoga, which belonged to Finnish rule between 1812 and 1944. The multidisciplinary approach permits an unusually wide range of questions. What has the Great Lake meant to local residents in cultural and emotional terms? How should we conceptualize the extensive and diverse networks of activities that surrounded the lake? What kind of Ladoga beaches did the Finns have to cede to the Soviet Union at the end of the war in 1944? How have Finns reminisced about their lost homelands? How have the Russians transformed the profile of the region, and what is the state of Ladoga’s waters today? The volume is the first overall presentation of Lake Ladoga, which today is entirely part of Russia, aimed at an international readership. The rich source material of cross-border research consists of both diverse archival material and chronicles, folklore, reminiscence, and modern satellite images. The history of Lake Ladoga helps readers to understand better the economic, political, and socio-cultural characteristics of the cross-border areas, and the dynamics of the vulnerable border regions.

Lakes Ladoga and Onego are the greatest lakes in Europe. With a surface area of 17891 km2 and a volume of 902 km3, the former is one of the top fifteen world’s freshwater lakes and is only slightly smaller than Lake Ontario. Lake Onego’s surface area is 9600 km2 and it has a volume of 292 km3. The watershed of Lake Ladoga (258000 km2) extends through Northwestern European Russia and the eastern part of Finland, including the large Lakes Ilmen and Saimaa, and together these Great European Lakes are an important link in the Caspian-Baltic-White Sea waterway system. Their ecological state affects the water quality of the Neva River, the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea. Thus any changes affect the operational use, environmental protection and management of water resources of a wide area and concern such issues as drinking, recreation, transport and energy. The anthropogenic impact on the Lake Onego ecosystem is mostly determined by the sewage waters of the Petrozavodsk and Kondopoga industrial centres, while the river inflow makes the most impact on Lake Ladoga. Although the anthropogenic stress on the water ecosystems of the Great European Lakes has decreased over the last 15 years, there has been some simultaneous evidence of global warming. There is not enough current data to identify the climate-induced changes in lake ecosystems, but there is proof that the main cause of lacustrine ecosystem changes is determined by anthropogenic factors.