Analysis of the Environmental Safety of Military Landfills by Factors of Relief and Geochemical Soil Pollution

Abstract

Military activities have a huge impact on the ecological state of the environment. A special place in this case is occupied by military ranges, where a huge number of different weapons and armaments are tested and used. Therefore, for assessment environmental damage and planning measures for the regeneration of soil cover, it is relevant to develop new approaches to forecasting the development of the environmental situation in the territories of military facilities. The existing methods and standards are unsuitable for assessing the environmental safety of soils when exposed to several factors affecting their degradation. In this case, soil degradation refers to a three-dimensional change in the terrain of the territory with variations in depth of no more than 10 m (craters from explosions) and its geochemical contamination. The methodology is based on a modified recurrent Ferhulst model used in various fields of knowledge to describe dynamic chaos systems. To assess and forecast the state of ecological systems, the concept proposed by the authors earlier is used – geoecological entropy, which varies in the range [0, 4] and determines the level of their stability in the range from 0 to 1. The technique has been tested on a site of a typical aviation landfill in the Central Federal District. It is shown that its multifactorial environmental safety is generally at a low level (compensated environmental crisis). A forecast of the development of the environmental situation at the landfill for the next 30 years has been made. Recommendations are given for the rehabilitation of the soil cover of the aviation landfill. The purpose of this study is to build a multifactorial methodology for assessing the physical and chemical degradation of soils as a result of military operations.