Soil Diversity of the Island of Gogland in the Gulf of Finland: History of Land Development and Current Status

Abstract

One of the most effective nature conservation measures is the creation of territories where human impact is limited, this is called specially protected natural areas. A significant contribution to increasing the area of the Russian Federation covered by protected areas was made by the creation of the State Nature Reserve in the Leningrad Region, known as the “East of the Gulf of Finland”. Initially, the reserve was supposed to include the island of Gogland (but it is now not part of the protected area). The locked status of the island, its remoteness from the coast, and the harsh features of the Gulf of Finland have contributed to the transformation of Gogland into a kind of open-air “museum”. The biological diversity of the island is closely connected with edaphic diversity, as soil is a natural habitat for a huge variety of living organisms. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to assess the edaphic potential of the island of Gogland, a territory that has existed for a long time with an extremely weak anthropogenic impact, in order to assess the ecosystem services of the island as one of the approaches to taking effective measures for nature protection. Data on chemical soil characteristics are discussed, as well as current soil pollution processes of these remote areas by trace elements. Edaphic studies carried out showed that the soil cover of the island of Gogland is characterized by sufficient diversity, the presence of soils at initial stages of development, soils with a fully developed differentiated profile with a pronounced eluvial process—eluvozems and various podzols, as well as the rarest, organogenic soils—bog, and bog-gley soils. The pHH2O of the studied soils on Gogland is characterized by a strongly acidic to weakly acidic reaction. The total pollution indicator of the studied soils is characterized by low values (Zc < 16), whereas the geoaccumulation index (Igeo) showed moderate/heavy pollution by only one element: Pb.