TY - JOUR AU - D. Sopov PY - 2018/03/30 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Disturbed lands of Lugansk region and their classification JF - Journal of Geology, Geography and Geoecology JA - JGGG VL - 26 IS - 1 SE - DO - https://doi.org/10.15421/111819 UR - https://geology-dnu.dp.ua/index.php/GG/article/view/476 AB - Land resources, which are the main means of production, are territorially limited. The Luhansk land fund has undergone significant changes for a rather short period of nature use. Extensive agricultural land use, mineral deposits development, industrial and housing construction, and the formation of communications have led to a significant problem - the occurrence of disturbed lands that reduce land suitable for economic use. The damaged lands create a real prospect of degradation of the land fund, which leads to the emergence of complex economic, environmental, socio-political problems. The agricultural and then mining industry in Lugansk began only two or three centuries ago, and the nature of nature use almost immediately gained extensive character, which also led to the degradation of the land fund due to the spread of disturbed lands. The main cause of soil degradation and reduction of the land fund was the substantial physical alienation of land in the coal region of Lugansk region, soil erosion and impoverishment due to the decrease of the humus cover, contamination by poisonous chemical compounds and radionuclides, and the like. The Lugansk region is characterized by a high rate of disturbed land, which includes 3.9% of the land fund. Only by natural factors 14.5% of the territory of the area is not used in the household as unsuitable (Derzhgeokadastr v Lugans'kij oblasti, 2016). The main violators of the land in Lugansk region are agricultural production (mainly agriculture) and the mining industry. The first factor leads to the development of erosion processes. Agricultural land eroded by 66.1% today. The dense drainage network of the region's territory increases by 1.5% per year. Humus losses, which determine the fertility of the land, have reached catastrophic proportions (Kysel'ova, 2011). Along with the loss of land as a result of agricultural use, the major losses to the land fund of the region is caused by the coal industry. The urgent problems associated with land use in the coal region of the Lugansk region are the physical loss of land due to the reduction of land resources due to their occupation of rock dumps and the accompanying mines by ground structures and communications. For mine development, dumps, terrains, and careers account for 17.5% of their total area. Territories occupy an area of 350 km2, and on the same square they indirectly have a negative influence on the soil, underground and surface waters. The area of disturbed mining by land mines for the entire period of operation of mines is 1.3% of the area, or 3.9% of the area of the coal region (Bucik, 1993). Flooding and desalinating over the mine fields increase the area of disturbed lands. The tendency in the dynamics of areas of disturbed and exhausted lands turns out to be negative, the area of disturbed and exhausted lands increases, and recultivated - decreases. The problem  of land scarcity caused the problem of rehabilitation of disturbed lands, a scientifically based solution of which is possible only through the improvement of the methods of identifying, accounting and classification of such lands. Proposed at different times classification of disturbed lands were taken into account or their features in aggregate, or in any combination. Most often, the signs that were taken as a basis for the classification were not one level, even incompatible. In order to determine the optimal ways of restoration and preservation of the land fund, a classification of disturbed lands of the Luhansk region has been developed, indicating the genetic factor, the characteristics of the main types of anthropogenic disturbed lands, the proposed types of remediation and the prospects for their recovery and use. The view was expressed that so-called disturbed lands, either naturally, through the economic activity of a person, are a reserve in the land fund of the region.  ER -