Natural Recovery of Soil and Vegetation Covers on Industrial Dumps

Within the boundaries of the industrial dump of a large chemical production facility, we investigated the state of the soils and vegetation for a set of parameters. The study identified several types of embryozems (initial, organic-accumulative, soddy, and humus-accumulative) which can be regarded as consecutive stages of technogenic soil formation. High alkalinity of the soils (pHwat.) of the dump was found to vary from 11-13 in initial embryozem to 8-9 in humus-accumulative embryozem, and a substantial imbalance of elements was detected in the soil absorption complex, which is due to considerable content levels of calcium carbonates. It is concluded that the technogenic dump involves the ongoing interconnected transformation of embryozems and vegetation, with a trend toward self-recovery of the disturbed territory.