Vol 25, No 2 (2017)

The drawing of Netherlandish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder “The Big Fish Eat the Little Fish” reflects perhaps not political allusions, as it is interpreted in the history of art, but a graphic food-chains scheme. It is possible that the picture engraving, stored in the British Museum, has influenced the creation of the food-chains concept by British ecologists Johnstone [1], Hardy [2] and Elton [3]. The taxonomic attachment of organisms depicted in the drawing has been determined.

The degree of influence on the biotic component of ecosystems depends on the level of oil contamination present in the soil. To determine the dose-effect, the reaction of living objects of different levels of organization with the use of methods of toxicology, analytical chemistry and ecology was studied. It was found that the concentration of oil in the soil of 200 g/kg and above has a toxic effect on microorganisms: the toxicity index was 38 units, the decomposition rate of benzo [a] pyrene significantly decreases. It was found that increasing the dose of oil pollution nonlinearly affects the conditions of plant development. At the same time, plant components react less actively to changes in the concentration of oil in the soils of the coniferous-broad-leaved subzone than in the soils of the southern taiga. The use of Daphnia magna Straus as a test object showed that for animals the soil becomes acute with an oil content of more than 200 g/kg soil. Thus, a dose-effect is shown for microorganisms, plants and animals with oil contamination of various soils.

Industrial sewage sludge poses a considerable threat to the environment due to the high level of humidity and due to the fact that it contains pathogenic microorganisms and heavy metals ions in quantities that considerably exceed threshold limit value. The article covers the results of a study regarding the drying of sewage sludge produced by a tannery in natural conditions indoors (controlled conditions) and outdoors, with temperatures below and above zero at different times of the year (production testing). The study discovered that humidity of sewage sludge produced by a tannery can be reduced within 2 months from 85% to 10,8% due to the drying technology in natural conditions at a temperature of 20 °С. If the drying procedure takes place in form of briquets at a temperature of 20 °С the size of the briquet would be reduced by 8,1 times, its mass - by 6 times, its linear size - by half. Sewage sludge drying conducted outdoors in winter progresses slowly and affects only the uppermost layer of 5-10 cm; in summer the drying process progresses faster and within the time frame of 20 days the humidity of the sludge is reduced from 85% to 70%. Rotation of defrostation, drainage, drying and freezing procedures is conducive to a specific, more powdery sludge than the one that is produced by using only the drying procedure with temperatures above zero. A dewatered sludge can be used to produce LECA (lightweight expanded clay aggregate). The article provides generalized statistics of study results regarding the sludge drying procedure in natural conditions in contrast to the geotube method.

Rapid development of the industry causes intensified contamination of the environment with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Tundra ecosystems have high recourse potential but also are characterized by a low resistance to anthropogenic influences. The aim of our research was to study possible use of organogenic soil horizons, plants and lichens to trace temporary changes in PAH content in south tundra communities under the aerotechnogenic pollution. Monitoring of PAH content was conducted in organogenic soil horizons and plants from lower vegetation layer of southern tundra. Soils and plants were sampled both from the вackground site and from the sites established in 0,5; 1 and 1,5 km north-east from the coal mine “Vorkutinskaya” taking into account the wind rose. The samples were collected at the polluted sites in 2013 and 2015. The model species - lichen Peltigera leucophlebia Nyl., moss Pleurozium schreberi Brid. and dwarf shrub Vaccinium myrtillus L. (leaves). ASE-350 accelerated solvent extraction system (Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) was used to extract PAHs from plants and soils. PAH content in the sample was determined by HPLC method.13 PAH structures were identified in organogenic horizons, plants and lichens from the sites under study. Coal dust was found to be the main PAH source for soils and plants affected by the mine “Vorkutinskaya”. Light polyarenes made the greatest contribution to the total PAH content. Their proportion remained stable in time at different distances from the mine indicating the constant nature of the contamination. Decrease of PAH content in plants during the two-year period was caused by decrease of mine effect intensity. Plants responded on changes in PAH streams faster than soil organogenic horizons. So, we suppose that plants can be used as better indicators of environmental changes. The largest level of PAH accumulation was revealed for moss Pleurozium schreberi, which due to its wide spread and active PAH accumulation ability can be used to indicate the contamination level in zones affected by coal mining industry.

The Republic of Kazakhstan is one of the oil-producing countries in the world.It is the area where oil is extracted by numerous oil companies, natural reserves of hydrocarbon raw materials are intensively exploited,and anthropogenic load on soils causes additional contamination of the geological environment.On the other hand, Kazakhstan is one of the water-deficient countries on the Eurasian continent, where groundwater is an important strategic resource. Therefore,prediction of the possibilitythat oil products can reach the groundwater level and pollutantscan spread in the aeration and saturation zones is one of the prerequisites for timely response for rehabilitation of the geological environment and ensuring of good quality of groundwaters.Therefore, the development of an expert system for rehabilitation of the geological environment contaminated by oil products is really actual. As the expert system is implementedon a single information platform of the CIS countries, it is necessary to coordinate the work of international participants at all its stages, from defining the concepts to selecting the model sites for system testing.The subject of this article is to determine the set of input data required for predicting migration of oil and oil products through soil, groundwater and surface runoff, andto develop a conceptual model of the expert system determining the structure of the modeled system and interrelations between its elements. Building of a clear hierarchy of objects makes the model more understandable for the developers and more friendlyfor the users of the expert system. The system usesthe methods of studying oil pollution, their systematization, updating of new and previously acquired knowledge.The structure of the methods contains conceptual, operational and logical components. Information on the time variation in the distribution of the concentration of petroleum products in the geological environment and the data on technologies used to restore the geological environment take into account specific features of the studied area.