Post-accident dynamics of flora and vegetation in the Belarusian sector exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

Abstract

The issues of vegetation cover dynamics in the Chernobyl accident area considered in the article. The research carried out within the boundaries of the Polessky State Radiation-Ecological Reserve. The objects of research are the flora and vegetation of the region. The research is based on as classical methods for studying flora and vegetation, as modern ones, using a long-term archive of Landsat satellite imagery. The article interprets that the flora and vegetation transformation processes of the Chernobyl exclusion zone are mainly due to natural changes and anthropogenically stimulated processes associated with the economic activity cessation. The authors noted a progressive increase of the vascular plant species number within the Reserve, which explained by the restoration processes beginning of the vegetation cover after the population evacuation and the economic activity complete stopping. The spatial isolation of the Polessky State Radiation-Ecological Reserve territory led to the preservation of flora synanthropization level, similar to the end of the 1980s. Former settlements, wastelands, former arable lands, linear objects (roads) and other former anthropogenic habitats are the retention and penetration centers of synanthropic species within the Reserve. The forested territory increasing is a key moment of the vegetation demutational successions in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. A large increase of derived small-leaved forests participation characterizes the dynamics of the forest vegetation formational structure during the post-accident period. Indigenous coniferous and deciduous fen forests also tend to distribution increase, but their dynamics is not rapid. Forests formation, bushing, waterlogging due to the degradation of drainage systems are the processes of meadow dynamics. Fragments of unchanged meadows preserved only in the Pripyat River floodplain. Restoration of bog-forming processes observed on disturbed peatlands, part of unforested fens transformed into forested fens, sparse forests and shrub thickets in the post-accident period. The processes of forest formation, local swamping prevail on the former agricultural and residential lands.