Ecological aspects of soil reclamation on overburden dumps in coal mining areas

Biologically productive soils are a non-renewable natural resource. It has been formed for hundreds of years under the influence of natural and anthropogenic factors of soil formation. Open-pit coal mining is accompanied by soil destruction, the involvement of man-made waste in the processes of hypergenesis and pedogenesis, including accelerated soil formation. This review focuses on the current state of the problem of ecology of biological reclamation of disturbed lands, special attention is paid to the creation of artificially created pedons on the surface of technogenic bodies, in the profile of which the humus or organogenic horizon is located on technogenic eluvium. It performs at the initial stages of soil formation the function of the underlying rock, and not the parent (soil-forming). Its characteristic feature is the presence of heavy, rare-earth, radioactive metals and metalloids, the supplier of which are minerals of the main overburden and host rocks of coal deposits (siltstones, mudstones, sandstones). In this regard, it is advisable to include artificially created soil-like formations in which there is a fertile layer introduced from the outside to improve the root nutrition of plants, monitoring their ecological and toxicological status, taking into account the gross content of heavy metals around the roots, in terrestrial biomass and biological activity. The review presents modern views on biogenicity and its role in the formation of soil fertility. The necessity of developing a strategy for a comprehensive study of the ecology of soil reclamation in the conditions of technogenesis is emphasized, which is important for the formation of high-quality reclamation services.