Manmade soil created using waste water mud: The potential for reclamation of mining-disturbed land

The article analyzes the issues of the disturbed land reclamation and justifies the need to boost the land rehabilitation activities and to increase the stock of types of fertile soil and mixed soil, in particular, created using waste water mud. The subject of research was the manmade soil created by the authors earlier. It was subjected to qualitative and quantitative phytotesting. The long-term plant growth experiment (210 days) shows that germination capacity of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) on the manmade soil as compared with the reference types of humic pod and standard artificial soil is higher by 13.5 and 5.5%, respectively, the total green biomass buildup is 41 and 26%, respectively, and the content of heavy metals in the dried test plants is within the standard variation limit. The comparative seed germination, root elongation and sprouting with the proposed and standard soil types using test plants of sorghum (Sorghum saccharatum (L.) Moenc), garden cress (Lepidium sativum L.) and white mustard (Sinapis alba L.) shows the increase by 13% in germination capacity, by 48% in root elongation and by 31% in sprouting. On this basis, it is proved that the proposed manmade soil has a potential for the reclamation of land disturbed by the mining production.

Bykova M. V., Malyukhin D. M. Manmade soil created using waste water mud: The potential for reclamation of mining-disturbed land. MIAB. Mining Inf. Anal. Bull. 2025;(9): 36-52. [In Russ]. DOI: 10.25018/0236_1493_2025_9_0_36.

The study was carried out under state contract with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, contract no. FSRW-2024-0005.

M.V. Bykova, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), Researcher, Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University, Saint Petersburg, 199106, Russia, e-mail: Bykova_MV@pers.spmi.ru, ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9150-4201,
D.M. Malyukhin, Cand. Sci. (Geogr.), Limited Liability Company «RPC EcoDrive», Leningrad region, Taitsy settlement, 188340, Russia, e-mail: info@eсodrive.su, ORCID ID: 0009-0003-7057-910X,

M.V. Bykova, e-mail: Bykova_MV@pers.spmi.ru.

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