Lake Baikal
Baikalsk, Irkutsk Oblast, Russia · 51.52°, 104.15° · River pollution
The world's deepest lake, holding a fifth of its unfrozen fresh water, is seeing algal mats and a toxic legacy from a pulp mill.
Baikal is more than 1,600 m deep and home to the nerpa, the only freshwater seal. Untreated sewage from lakeside towns and tourism has fuelled unusual blooms of Spirogyra algae and die-offs of endemic sponges in shallow bays. The Baikalsk pulp and paper mill, which discharged into the lake for decades, closed in 2013 but left millions of tonnes of waste in ponds near the shore.
In the game
Lake Baikal flares up as Polluted water. The fix is a gesture: drag through the floating waste to sweep it up. Done right, it becomes Water cleaned ♻️. Finish all three steps of its chain in one round for a combo, or take your time in Explore mode: a place you fully restore stays green on your map for good.
🧭 Fly there and restore it▶ Play a 60-second round