EURO-ECO 2011Hanover21 - 22 November 2011 |
Environmental, Engineering - Economic and Legal Aspects for Sustainable Living |
European Academy of Natural Sciences, HanoverEuropean Scientific Society, HanoverUniversity of Bremen, Bremen |
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| O.V. Dulya A.N. Medvedev |
LONG-TERM OBSERVATIONS OF PLANT DIVERSITY AND PRODUCTIVITY NEAR AN OPEN COPPER PIT |
| Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Institute of Industrial Ecology, Ural Department of Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia |
Long-term vegetation diversity and productivity observations are rare but especially precious when anthropogenic impact onto natural ecosystems is assessed.
In this work we have an objective to describe changes of plant cover in the vicinity of Safianovskiy Open Copper Mine (Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia) during 17-year period of its operation.
The biological investigations are the part of a complex environmental monitoring system which is implemented at Safianovskiy enterprise from the very beginning of its existing.
Study area belongs to the region of Middle Urals and to the southern taiga phytogeographical subzone.
In 1994-1996 six plots 25 x 25 m were chosen in the vicinity of Safyanovskiy open copper pit.
At that time each plot was situated in different plant communities: two formerly mowed meadows (No.1, 4) and pine (5, 6) or birch (2, 3) forests with grassy, fern, moss or dwarf herb cover.
At present plots No.1 and 2 are located along a seasonal stream containing some amount of waste water from the open pit; plots No.3 and 4 are located in the close vicinity to the waste rocks dump.
As a result of natural succession, plot No.4 turned into young birch brushwood over the time of the research.
Plots No.5 and 6 are the most distant from the open pit; No.5 suffers from medium recreational load; No.6 presents a local forest reserve with slight recreational load. In 2003 plots No.2 and 6 (and in 2010 No.6) suffered from creeping fires.
Every year (or every second year) in the middle July aboveground parts of the herb layer were cut from ca. 20 squares 50 x 50 cm in each plot. Species composition was determined and dry weight of plants was measured. According to this a dataset of the cover total dry weight, species number and biodiversity indices of each plot in each year was obtained.
To the present time, plant species number and productivity slightly decreased in the forest plots and most dramatically in plot No.1. Meanwhile productivity and species richness of the meadow plot No.4 did not change.
Considering the obtained results we come to the conclusion that plots located at different distances from the open pit, in general have similar trends in plant cover changes.
Thus, recreational load and occasional fire accidents have the same impact on vegetation as proximity to waste rock dumps of mining enterprise.
Nevertheless, waste water inflow from the open pit seems to become a cause of the plant cover degradation on plot No.1 due to mechanical damage of the soil cover as well as high water acidity.
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