Trend Analysis of Water-Soluble Salts Vertical Migration in Technogenic Edaphotops of Reclaimed Mine Dumps in Western Donbass (Ukraine)

Surface evaporation rates that are greater than precipitation rates lead to upward salinization processes and, consequently, man-made contamination of the covering surface layers on coal dumps in Western Donbass, Ukraine. The effectiveness of capping the mine dumps with different layers of black-soil mass, both with and without a shielding layer of loess-like loam, was studied in order to develop the optimal scheme for the reclamation of these dumps. Principal component analyses were carried out in order to reveal the regularities of the upward salt migration to the surfaces of reclaimed coal mine dumps. The parameters of the layer-by-layer variation of the physical and chemical data in soil water extracts (namely, pH, total salinity and concentrations of bicarbonates, chlorides, sulfates, calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium) which were obtained in 1987, 2003 and 2016 along the reclaimed profiles of various models of technogenic edaphotop, gradually acquire a stable-equilibrium state of mineralization in space and time. The alkaline barrier is the main factor for pH-changes and profile salinization of reclaimed land. Keywords: mine dump reclamation, water-soluble salts migration, soil profile, principal component analysis