Studies of technogenic soils in Poland: past, present, and future perspectives

Abstract

For a long time, the soils covering areas strongly transformed by human were ignored in scientifi c discourse. Also, practice did not care much about these soils because of their unproductivity. Only the large post-mining areas reclaimed and transformed into a forest or agricultural land were more interesting both for science and practice. In the case of post-mining areas the term "soilless land" was used for a long time, especially in relation to areas which were not reclaimed. In this paper, the past studies (until the end of 20 th century) of technogenic soils in Poland were described. Technogenic soils of urban and industrial areas appeared in scientifi c considerations in Poland in the second half of the 20 th century. In those times, soil properties on disposal sites were mainly investigated as a basic information for further design of technical and biological reclamation on disposal sites. Two Polish scientists should be emphasised as the world pioneers in concepts and studies of technogenic soils: (1) Michał Strzemski, who proposed a classifi cation scheme for soils in urban and industrial areas, as well as listed the tasks for future studies of these soils, and (2) Tadeusz Skawina, who focused on the dynamic and directions of the soil-forming processes on the mine spoils in the context of their reclamation. Moreover, studies of technogenic soils in the last two decades were also shown in the paper. From the beginning of the 21 st century the scientifi c research gained momentum. Nowadays, Polish researchers have great achievements in studying technogenic soils, including investigation of their properties, genesis, evolution, classifi cation, biological features etc. Furthermore, we drew some outlines for future studies of Technosols.

Soil Temperature in Disturbed Ecosystems of Central Siberia: Remote Sensing Data and Numerical Simulation

“…Anomalous heating of the surface is also observed for post-technogenic areas (open pit mining, quarries, overburden dumps, logging, etc. ), characterized by the intense mechanical impact on the vegetation cover and soil [29,30]. This issue is relevant for the zone of the resource-mining complex of Siberia and, in particular, for the Arctic zone (>65 • N).…”

Effect of Land Reclamation on Soil Properties, Mineralogy and Trace-Element Distribution and Availability: The Example of Technosols Developed on the Tailing Disposal Site of an Abandoned Zn and Pb Mine

“…High contamination of soils developed on Zn-Pb mine tailing disposal sites with trace elements is their common feature [1,10,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. It was also confirmed that metals are taken up by plants introduced into Zn-Pb industrial wastes from the "Trzebionka" mine [57].…”

Biodiversity of Actinomycetes from Heavy Metal Contaminated Technosols

“…Moreover, contaminants pose a threat to remote areas through emission, leakage into the soil and water and due to accumulation in the food chain. Soils generated or radically transformed by human activities are called technosols or technogenic soils [ 1 ]. Lots of the technosols arise as a result of ore mining and ore processing.…”