Assessment of the impact of chemical pollution of ferrous metallurgy enterprises on forests using satellite photographs

The considered operating ferrous metallurgy enterprise uses three different technological modes of steel smelting, each of which is characterized by an individual composition of the ingredients of chemical pollutant emissions into the atmosphere affecting the state of the forest areas around this enterprise. Based on the decoding of satellite pixel photographs of forest areas, the technological mode with the least impact on forest areas was determined. It corresponds to the condition of the minimum area of ecological zones around the ferrous metallurgy enterprise. The authors propose an assessment of the impact of chemical pollution of ferrous metallurgy enterprises on forests in the form of areas of ecological zones of the state of forest vegetation and the volume of biomass in its various parts. The mosaic of ecological zones of forest areas is determined from their satellite pixel photographs using an original algorithm of "controlled cluster analysis". The main recommendation for ferrous metallurgy enterprises to choose one of several alternative technological modes is as follows: the choice of technological mode should be based on a comparison of sizes of the areas of ecological zones. In this case, the technological mode with the smallest dimensions of the area is selected. Assessment of the damage caused by the chemical pollution of the plant to forest areas was determined by the area of ecological zones and the volume of biomass loss in forest areas in comparison with the background areas. The boundaries of ecological zones can be determined according to the "dose-effect" dependencies typical for the considered region