The analysis of the principles and methods evaluation of environmental safety levels in regional context

Comparison of regions of Ukraine according to relevant indicators and levels of environmental safety is the basis for developing a national strategy and organizing effective safety measures. The aim to determine priorities and to analyze the methodological bases of evaluation and differentiation of territorial areas according to the levels of environmental hazard. Conceptual and methodological basis for the assessment, analysis and forecasting of hazard levels of territories: integrated assessment methods, method of standardized indicators, risk assessment methods, weighting coefficient method in multiplicative and additive form, cluster method. The principles and methods for assessing the state of natural and man-made safety of the territory are generalized. The main approaches to ranking the regions of Ukraine for the levels of environmental hazards or environmental risks associated with them had analyzed. The approaches and criteria for assessing the ecological situation of heterogeneous in terms of functional purpose and scale of areas are proposed. We have discussed the reasons for a significant fluctuation of safety ratings of the regions and ways to overcome the methodological limitations of their definition. We have substantiated the introduction of the index of “urbogenicity” of the region, and considering the restorative possibilities of natural landscapes as the basis for stabilizing the ecological balance and compensating of negative man-made and urban influences. The clustering method that can consider the complexity of geosystems, the adaptive behavior of components, the sameness of ecological situation in the region as members of one group, were proposed to differentiate regions

The effect of combined pollution by PAHs and heavy metals on the topsoil microbial communities of Spolic Technosols of the lake Atamanskoe, Southern Russia

The contamination with organic and inorganic pollutants changes significantly soil microbial community structure. These shifts indicate anthropogenic pressure and help to discover new possibilities for soil remediation. In this study, the microbial community structure of Spolic Technosols formed at the territory of a former industrial sludge reservoir near the Kamensk-Shakhtinsky (Southern Russia) was studied using a metagenomics approach. The studied soils contain high concentrations of heavy metals (HM) (up to 72,900 mg kg−1) and 16 priority polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (up to 6670 mg kg−1). Its microbial communities demonstrate an excellent adaptability level reflected in their complexity and diversity. As shown by the high values of alpha diversity indices (Shannon values up to 10.1, Chao1 values from 1430 to 4273), instead of decreasing quantitatively and qualitatively on the systemic level, microbial communities tend to undergo complex redistribution. Regardless of contamination level, the share of Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria was consistently high and varied from 20 to 50%. Following the results of the Mann–Whitney U test, there were significant changes of less abundant phyla. The abundance of oligotrophic bacteria from Gemmatimonadetes and Verrucomicrobia phyla and autotrophic bacteria (e.g., Nitrospira) decreased due to the high PAH’s level. And abundance of Firmicutes and amoebae-associated bacteria such as TM6 and soil Chlamydia increased in highly contaminated plots. In the Spolic Technosols studied, the influence of factors on the microbial community composition decreased from PAHs concentration to soil characteristics (organic carbon content) and phylum–phylum interactions. The high concentrations of HMs influenced weakly on the microbial community composition