Aquaculture is the most rapidly growing branch of animal production. The efficiency and quality of the produced food depends on sustainable management, water quality, feed prices and the incidence of diseases. Micro- (MP < 5 mm) and nanoplastic (NP < 1000 nm) particles are among the current factors causing serious water pollution. This substance comes solely from products manufactured by humans. MP particles migrate from the terrestrial to the aquatic environment and adversely affect, especially, the health of animals and humans by being a favorable habitat and vector for microbial pathogens and opportunists. More than 30 taxa of pathogens of humans, aquacutural animals and plants, along with opportunistic bacteria, have been detected in plastic-covering biofilm to date. The mobility and durability of the substance, combined with the relatively closed conditions in aquacultural habitats and pathogens’ affinity to the material, make plastic particles a microbiological medium threatening the industry of aquaculture. For this reason, in addition to the fact of plastic accumulation in living organisms, urgent measures should be taken to reduce its influx into the environment. The phenomenon and its implications are related to the concept of one health, wherein the environment, animals and humans affect each other’s fitness.
The regulation of river flow in the Volga basin has caused irreversible changes to aquatic ecosystems. The transformation of the Volga into a cascade of hydraulic structures with a non-flow regime has resulted in a decrease in depth and flow, and an increase in the temperature and concentration of chemical elements, which has induced the process of eutrophication. The change in the species diversity of aquatic organisms under conditions of intense eutrophication was studied on models of water bodies from the Volga basin; the Kostroma section of the Gorky reservoir (Kostroma spill and the middle river section), and lakes Galichskoe and Chukhlomskoe were studied. Rheophilic biocenosis was replaced by a limnophilic one, the migration paths of fish were disrupted, and population characteristics were changed. In accordance with environmental conditions, the level of primary production and the calculated Carlson trophic index (TSI) and Broth-proposed index (ITS) (1987), the water bodies of the northern part of the upper Volga region are classified as follows: the middle river section of the Gorky reservoir is mesotrophic-eutrophic (TSI = 55.2, ITS = 16.2); the Kostroma spill is eutrophic with a tendency to hypertrophy (TSI = 67.4, ITS = 6.8); Lake Galichskoe is eutrophic with a tendency to dystrophy (TSI = 63.2, ITS = 8.4), and Lake Chukhlomskoe is hypertrophic with a tendency to dystrophy (TSI = 77.4, ITS = 8.0). In addition, frequent fluctuations in water level, reaching 1 m, have had an adverse effect on inhabitants of the littoral zone including the spawning fish, which may lead to disappearance of some of the region’s most sensitive species.