Today, July 13, a meeting was held under the chairmanship of Taras Vysotskyi, First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, with the participation of the SI “Derzhgruntokhorona” and heads of regional branches.
Military actions in Ukraine cause great damage to the environment. The direct impact of shells, burnt military equipment and oil products destroy the ecosystem and pollute the soil and water with heavy metals and toxic elements. Therefore, the establishment of these damages and restoration of soils in places of active hostilities is an important issue for Ukraine.
During four months of active hostilities, the soil cover of 9 regions of Ukraine with an area of about 21 million hectares was irreparably damaged. By region, approximately, Luhansk – 100% of the area, Donetsk – 100%, Kherson – 100%, Zaporizhzhya – 96%, Kharkiv – 88%, Mykolaiv – 43%, Sumy – 42%, Chernihiv – 39%, Kyiv – 29% , Dnipropetrovsk – 9% and Zhytomyr – 8%.
DU “State Soil Protection” studied foreign scientific experience of the impact of active hostilities on soils. For example, after the end of hostilities in Croatia, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, the Northern Mariana Islands, and France, an increase in the concentration of heavy metals in the soil was found. And Belgian scientists have established that in the fields where the battles of the First World War took place, even after 90 years, the content of heavy metals in the soil exceeds the norm.
The problem is the uncertainty of MPC for elements – pollutants as a result of hostilities in international practice, extracting solutions and methods of determination. They are different in different countries. According to the researchers’ experience, mass spectrometers with inductively coupled plasma provide the greatest range and accuracy of determination, which, unfortunately, are not available under the authority of the Ministry of Agricultural Policy.
Specialists of State State Soil and Soil Protection University determined the content of elements on agricultural lands in soil samples according to the regulatory documents in force in Ukraine. It was established that the content of gross forms of heavy metals in disturbed soil samples exceeds the background values by 1.1 to 15.5 times. The largest excess is due to the content of lead, the smallest is due to the content of iron.
Also, experts of the institute determined the content of oil and oil products, which are dangerous pollutants – especially for soil cover.
In order to prevent negative consequences for the human body, it is necessary to carry out careful monitoring of soil areas damaged and contaminated as a result of hostilities, which will allow timely measures to be taken for their reproduction and rehabilitation, as well as to establish the boundaries of contaminated areas for the purpose of their restoration.
The SI “Derzhgruntokhorona” is the only business entity of Ukraine that has current results of surveys of agricultural land at its disposal, on the basis of which it is possible to conduct further work on reproduction and rehabilitation, as well as to establish the boundaries of contaminated areas for the purpose of their restoration.