The actuality of the article is that the water tourism is a priority sector of Ukraine, but it is developing unequally: some rivers are used more extensively, water routes are developed, while others are barely considered. The main reason is the lack of interest of people to travel on the rivers of Ukraine and the market is not sufficiently secured with the recreational routes, assessments, well - developed infrastructure. Our country has a significant recreational and tourist potential of

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... resources. Analysis of the literature has shown that recreational and tourist potential of water resources in Ukraine has been insufficiently studied. In the Soviet Union the research in this area was conducted only within the union. After the independence of Ukraine recreational and tourist potential was used for different types of tourism activities, including boating. This article discusses the methodology for assessing reservoirs for recreational use and certain drawbacks have been found out, since they consider only morphometric parameters of reservoirs while other important indicators are ignored. In particular, sailing should consider wind speed and wave eight. According to these techniques hydrological characteristics of the Siversky Donets basin rivers (within Kharkiv region) have been assessed for various types of tourist-recreational activity and it has been found out that the Siversky Donets river and its tributaries can be used for swimming, boating, fishing. But at some intervals there are locks or dams that do not allow to use the river length in full for sailing and motor-sailing, water skiing, etc. These materials can also be used in the educational process, both in high school and in the secondary school. For example, in the course of «Physical geography of Ukraine», in the performance of practical work «Assessment of Water Resources», during natural practical work on water resources.