Assessment of environmental and functional properties of Irkutsk region urban forest soil cover
https://doi.org/10.21285/2686-9993-2025-48-3-365-381
EDN: MMDCUU
Abstract
The problem of anthropogenic changes in the biogeocenotic functions of the soil cover of urban forests in the Irkutsk region requires knowledge of the territory functioning mechanism and timely assessment of environmental consequences. The purpose of the research lies in the selection of a list of necessary indicators that describe the environmental and functional properties of soils, which allow a highly informative assessment of changes in the environmental state of the soil cover in an urbanized environment. The research asseses those environmental and functional properties of soils which are directly related to the improvement of the urban environment including detoxifying ability, nutritional regime and soil buffering capacity. Forest litter and upper humus horizon parameters are shown to be the most informative. All selected soil indicator parameters are found to have high levels of mutual correlation, reflecting their high functionality under the negative anthropogenic impacts (technogenic pollution and recreational load) of the urban environment. The research results expanded our understanding of the environmental mechanisms of soil adaptation to anthropogenic loads and the role of these components in maintaining ecological balance in urban areas. The presented approach based on selected informative parameters of forest soils in urban areas enabled to assess the environmental potential of soils as well as the feasibility of cleaning and restoring the urban environment under the current conditions of airborne anthropogenic pollution and recreational loads. It also allowed to develop recommendations for optimizing urban environmental conditions.
Keywords
Supporting agencies: The work was carried out within the framework of the state assignment of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (reg. No. NIOKTR – 125021702332-4).
About the Author
O. V. Shergina
Siberian Institute of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Competing Interests:
Russian Federation
Olga V. Shergina, Cand. Sci. (Bio.), Leading Researcher of the Department of Terrestrial Ecosystem Stability
Irkutsk
Competing Interests:
The author declares no conflicts of interests.
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For citations:
Shergina O.V. Assessment of environmental and functional properties of Irkutsk region urban forest soil cover. Earth sciences and subsoil use. 2025;48(3):365-381. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.21285/2686-9993-2025-48-3-365-381. EDN: MMDCUU
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