Field research on military contamination for soils of agricultural landscapes with heavy metals
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26565/2410-7360-2026-64-28Keywords:
military contamination, heavy metals, landscape-ecological analysis, geospatial analysis, positional-dynamic conditions, soil field research strategy, agrolandscape, extrapolation of results, soil recoveryAbstract
The aim of the research was to study the agrolandscape diversity of the territory through landscape-ecological analysis and substantiation, development and pilot testing of a Strategy for sampling soils of agrolandscapes militarily altered by massive bomb-turbation with uncontrollable aircraft missiles (UAM) S-8 for laboratory determination of extent for their contamination with heavy metals.
Methods. The methods of landscape-ecological analysis were used, namely those related to the analysis of nature management and landscape planning and design, anthropization of landscapes, agroecology, landscape geochemistry, ecological-geochemical studies of heavy metal migration in agricultural landscapes, landscape-ecological geospatial analysis and modeling. The methodology of geospatial analysis using the GIS tools ArcGIS and QGIS and the procedure of probabilistic systematic geospatial screening of soil sampling were also applied. The object of the field research was the simulated landscape tiers and strips of positional-dynamic structure and the war-affected agro-landscapes of the Shevchenkivska United Territorial Community (UTC) of the Mykolaiv region in Ukraine.
Results. The scientific-applied potential of the landscape-ecological analysis methodology for substantiating the strategy of field research on military soil contamination of agricultural landscapes with heavy metals was considered. The positional-dynamic landscape territorial structure, simulated using tools for open digital data geospatial analysis, is defined as the basis for synthesizing information on the agrolandscape diversity of territories. The results of the testing for the developed strategy of field research on soils of agricultural landscapes, obtained during field research in the Shevchenkivska UTC, are presented. The uniqueness of the proposed field research procedure and results is due to the application of the methodology of landscape-ecological analysis and the agrolandscape as an object selected for research. The soil sampling strategy at selected research sites of the agrolandscape was determined by the results of the analysis for experience with similar sampling of soils that had been subjected to bomb-turbation, by office-based pre-field generalizations of all prerequisites for in situ work, and by expert-analytical decisions during the field research. The obtained results of research on military contamination of soils with heavy metals for the selected agrolandscape can be extrapolated to the territory of the entire studied landscape tier of the positional-dynamic area for the same agrolandscapes with similar military factors of their condition.
Conclusions. The novelty of the conducted investigations is determined by the substantiated and tested methodology, object and sampling strategy for field research of military contamination of agricultural landscapes soils. The research results are relevant for the implementation of effective research programs and analysis of soil condition and the use of these results in the development of a unified state-level procedure for studying and assessing the condition of war-contaminated soils for their recovery.
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