The tailing ponds of the iron ore-dressing combines occupy thousands of hectares in Kryvyi
Rih area and create a serious ecologic problem in this region. If the surface of the tailing ponds
dries up, it leads to dust storms, which often cover housing areas of the city as well as surrounding
villages. To green these tailing ponds is one of the most reliable methods of dust suppression.
However, the solving of this problem is fraught with a number of difficulties because very restricted
quantity of herbaceous plant species can survive in the sludge substrate under conditions of the
steppe zone of Ukraine
