<p>The sugar industry has been widespread in the world for centuries, accumulating huge amounts of production waste. The development of modern technologies for sugar beet processing has led to the abandonment of dumps and sumps; not all of them were remediated later. In Russia, the industrial production of sugar from sugar beets was established in the early 19th century. For the first time, soils and landscapes formed on abandoned sites of sugar production waste in the Chernozem zone of Russia were studied. The distribution and chronological sequence of abandoned sites were identified using space images and field observation. Sugar production wastes discharged into sumps and landfills contained mainly carbonic lime (&#1057;&#1072;&#1057;&#1054;3), caustic lime Ca(OH)<sub>2</sub> and organic material, and an admixture of nitrogen, phosphorus potassium and sulfur (about 1-3%). It was revealed that in about 50 years, alkaline soil- geochemical landscapes were formed, which are unusual in the study area. Series of ponds temporarily filled with rainwater &#8211; former waste sumps &#8211; are covered with dense reed beds (Phragm&#237;tes austr&#225;lis); there, strongly alkaline (pH &#8805;9), rich in organic matter and bioturbated soils with a thickness of up to 50-60 cm are formed. They can be attributed to Garbic Technosols (Carbonic), but their classification position in WRB needs to be clarified. Reed has spread widely in the surrounding water bodies and rivers; newly formed landscapes enrich waters with nutrients, contributing to their eutrophication. Soil mantle is also complicated by Technosols of industrial sites of sugar factories, soils in the remediated and no-remediated landfills, and soils irrigated with sugar mills' wastewater. All these soils are repositories of large volumes of organic carbon. The study of newly formed soils and landscapes, overgrowing of dumps and sumps is extremely important both for nature conservation and for understanding the seasonal patterns of carbon dioxide emissions from accumulations of organic substances. Integrated soil-geochemical and geobotanical studies of areas affected by the sugar industry can be pioneers, among other things, to expand the horizons of soil and geobotanical classification.</p> <p>The work was financially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project &#8470; 19-29-05025-mk.</p>
<p>Soils formed at once abandoned and recultivated industrial waste dumping sites are key research objects both as models of soil-forming processes in underdeveloped soils and indicators of persistent or potential environmental hazards of dumps themselves. Our studies of technogenic surface-like soil formations (TSF) and soils were conducted on a closed landfill and two abandoned filtration fields from sugar factories&#160; in Kursk region, central part of European Russia.</p><p>Key properties of TSF and soils were defined with the assessments of their ecological, microbiological state and gas-geochemical condition. Set of methods (mesomorphological and micromorphological analysis, soil chemical and physico-chemical analysis, comparatively geographical method) was used for the detection of current elementary soil processes. Seasonal dynamics of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions from soils to the atmosphere was also under consideration. Main used methodology is a research of sustainable properties of soil solid-phase (&#8220;soil memory&#8221;) together with soil functioning.</p><p>Long-term time series of high-detailed remote sensing data (from archive aerial photos of 1950s to actual satellite images and UAV optical photogrammetry) provided the possibility for the retrospective remote monitoring of the all abandoned dumps in study and reconstruction of their life cycles and land cover patterns.</p><p>As a result for the three industrial waste dumping sites of different types and the varying age of abandonment and recultivation history there were elaborated schemes of chrono-functional zoning. Each chrono-functional zone is characterized by the specific set of TSF and soils. Among them, it was described technogenic surface-like soil formations of closed landfill, calcareous technosols with several thick organic layers at the bottom of abandoned field filtration cells, calcic anthrosols of field filtration cells spontaneously used for agriculture after the abandonment of sugar factories.</p><p>The study is financially supported by RFBR project &#8470; 19&#8211;29&#8211;05025&#8211;mk.</p>
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