Today, one of the main threats to humanity is man-made pollution of the environment as a result of the activities of enterprises engaged in the extraction and processing of non-ferrous metals. In the Russian Federation there are several dozen landfills with man-made waste formed as a result of the activities of mining and metallurgical, fuel and energy, nuclear and other industrial enterprises. On the one hand, landfills pose a high danger to the life and health of the population, on the other hand, they are of commercial interest to the above–mentioned enterprises, since they contain a number of rare chemical elements.

It is important to note that many toxic substances accumulate in so–called tailings dumps - huge reservoirs for storing water and waste, they can pose a danger to local flora and fauna, as birds and animals bathe and drink water from polluted sources. The leakage of toxic substances from tailings dumps can also harm the environment.

It is currently not possible to abandon industrial enterprises and completely limit the release of man-made pollutants. However, their condition and impact on the environment can be controlled by scientists and experts in the field of biosafety.

Based on the urgency of this problem, scientists of the SFedU branch in Gelendzhik conducted a study as part of the implementation of the strategic project "Soil Resource Management and Agro-climatology" of the Priority 2030 program. In the course of the work, express methods of monitoring and risk assessment for adjacent environments in impact zones with abnormal pollution levels were developed. The new technique will help to preserve the geoecological stability of the region, taking into account its seismicity.

According to scientists, it is the identification of patterns of formation of spatial heterogeneity of technogenic soil pollution in contrasting anomalous zones by methods of geostatistical analysis that will optimize monitoring studies. And the implementation of the project's tasks will contribute to countering man-made and biogenic threats to the environment, society and the state.

In order to test some of the results of scientific research, employees of the branch of the Southern Federal University in Gelendzhik conducted an expedition in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania to install/dismantle stationary devices, measure the parameters of geodynamic stability of the Unalsky tailing dump.

"During the implementation of the project within the framework of the Priority 2030 program, in addition to the development of new express methods for monitoring man-made pollution, the hypothesis was confirmed that the state and current values of the stress-strain state of the desiccated body of the tailings dump can be assessed by variations in radon-222 emanations," said the head of the Department of Natural Sciences and humanities, branch of the SFedU in Gelendzhik Andrey Sokolov.

The results of the research can be used to carry out geo-ecological monitoring of the soil cover, assess the potential threat to public health and analyze the geodynamic stability of anomalous zones not only in the mining and metallurgical industry, but also in any other economic sector where technogenic manifestations of various nature take place. The introduction of the developed information systems, express monitoring methods and models in the mining and metallurgical industry of the Russian Federation will increase the efficiency of management, significantly reducing the technogenic load in the system "MMC enterprise – environment”

The results of scientific research, as well as expedition research are presented in the journal "Sustainable development of mountain territories".

For reference:

The branch of the SFedU in Gelendzhik entered the strategic academic leadership Program "Priority 2030" (national project "Science and Universities") with the project "Express methods of monitoring man-made pollution and risk assessment in geochemically anomalous zones" # SP-12-22-7 . The project manager is Vitaly Linnik, PhD, V.I. Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The project is included in the program of projects "Soil Resources Management and agro-climatology", the scientific curator of which is the head of the Department of Soil Science and Land Resources Assessment of the Southern Federal University, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor Tatiana Minkina.