RESEARCH ARTICLE


Rehabilitation of Industrial Barren in Arctic Region Using Mining Wastes



Marina V. Slukovskaya1, *, Lyubov A. Ivanova2, Irina P. Kremenetskaya1, Tamara T. Gorbacheva3, Svetlana V. Drogobuzhskaya1, Vladimir V. Lashchuk1, Evgenia F. Markovskaya4
1 Institute of Chemistry and Technology of Rare Elements and Mineral Raw Materials, Kola Science Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences, Academgorodok Str., 26a, Apatity, Russia
2 Polar-Alpine Botanical Garden-Institute, Kola Science Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences, Academgorodok Str., 18a, Apatity, Russia
3 Institute of the Industrial Ecology Problems of the North, Kola Science Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences, Academgorodok Str., 14a, Apatity, Russia
4 Petrozavodsk State University, Lenina Str., 33, Petrozavodsk, Russia

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2018
Volume: 11
First Page: 1
Last Page: 13
Publisher Id: TOECOLJ-11-1
DOI: 10.2174/1874213001811010001

Article History:

Received Date: 8/11/2017
Revision Received Date: 18/1/2018
Acceptance Date: 22/1/2018
Electronic publication date: 21/02/2018
Collection year: 2018

© 2018 Slukovskaya et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Institute of Chemistry and Technology of Rare Elements and Mineral Raw Materials, Kola Science Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Academgorodok Str., 26a, Apatity, Russia, Tel: (+7)9095722478; E-mail: krem.mv@gmail.com


Abstract

Background:

This work has explored the possibility of applying mining waste-based ameliorants for the remediation of soil that has been transformed by copper-nickel smelter emissions by means of forming artificial phytocenosis.

Objective:

The aim of our work was to propose, develop and approbate a technique for the preservation of dumps polluted by heavy metals and prevention of their erosion by creating dense grass covers with the use of wastes from mining and processing enterprises to form a supporting substrate for herbaceous plants.

Methods:

The vegetative cover was cultivated on a supporting medium, consisting of mining waste, with a hydroponic vermiculite substrate and a mix of graminaceous plant seeds, indigenous to the study area and resistant to heavy metal pollution. The mining wastes, used in the experiment, contained acid-neutralizing minerals such as calcium and magnesium carbonate and hydrous magnesium silicate.

Results:

It is shown that, due to a large pool of Ca and Mg, these mineral substrates are alkaline (pH 8.4 – 9.2) and can perform successfully in optimizing of edaphic conditions for the plant communities grown on industrial barrens. In a pilot experiment without a proposed supporting medium, the plants did not form a stable grass cover and had died out by the beginning of the third growing season, whereas the experimental plots with a proposed supporting medium (waste-based substrate) developed a high-quality grass cover by the end of second vegetation seasons.

Conclusion:

The resulting plant communities grown on a proposed supportive medium is find to be resistant to aerotechnogenic pollutants and capable of independent survival, representing the initial stage of progressive succession in the presence of on-going pollution.

Keywords: Rehabilitation, Copper-nickel smelter, Industrial barren, Mining wastes, Ameliorant, Phytoremediation.