Ecological problems of technogenically disturbed lands on the Absheron Peninsula

Abstract


 
 
 The study area occupies an important place in our republic’s economic, political, and agricultural development. It is very important to properly use the land of an area with such an advantageous position. In addition to rich deposits of oil, gas, and gas condensate, the Absheron Peninsula has widespread mineral deposits (limestone, gypsum, crushed stone, bentonite, sand, etc.). Currently, the accumulation of waste in the territory of quarries and dumps after the extraction of non-metallic minerals on a large scale has led to the formation of technogenically disturbed areas. On the territory of the quarries themselves and adjacent lands, well-developed soils are widespread (irrigated ordinary gray soils with different granulometric composition and thickness, semi-desert gray-brown soils). During the extraction of deposits, as a result of the use of multiton machines and mechanisms, these lands were subjected to varying degrees of technogenic degradation, lost their fertility, and have not yet been studied either genetically or economically. Therefore, when writing this article, the main goal was a large-scale study of these lands and the development of recommendations for their restoration. Various scientists have conducted research on the geochronology of the formation of the soil and vegetation cover of the Absheron Peninsula, the degree of exposure to technogenic impacts, the development of a typological classification, mapping and modeling them to a fertile state in order to evaluate them in terms of biological productivity. However, it has not been possible to fully study the land and use it in different economic sectors. For this reason, an important topic of our time is touched upon in the presented article and is chosen again due to its relevance. As an object of study, the soil and vegetation cover of the territory where organic and non-metallic resources of the peninsula were mined, as well as lands that remained outside the scope of large-scale research, spread over the deformed areas of the Absheron Peninsula, were chosen. In order to give the research a greater scientific-theoretical and scientific-practical orientation, we laid soil-vegetation sections, described natural vegetation, and took sam- ples for laboratory analysis from reference places in the study area,. According to the analysis in the studied soils, it can be said that the amount of dry residue, which is considered the main indicator of the degree of salinity, ranges from 0.172-2.312% in the upper reaches of the accumulative-humus layers, which indicates that a small part of these soils has a predominantly weak medium, strong and very strong salinity.