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Natural environmental potential of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly: Trends and aspects of nature conservation
Gcoforum, Vol. lS.No. Printed in Great Britain.
1, pp. 201-104,
0016-7185/84 Pcrgamon
lY84
53.00+0.00 Press Ltd
Natural Environmental Potential of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly: Trends and Aspects of Nature Conservation
T. V. ZVONKOVA,”
Moscow, U.S.S.R.
The open-cast exploitation of the massive iron ore deposits in the region of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly (KMA) is having an immense effect on the natural environment. This paper reviews the problems involved and assesses the geographical contribution in what is a long-standing multi-disciplinary and multi-programme approach to economic development. Abstract:
there is the reIevance of the research over a prolonged period. Moreover, the exploitation of the KMA is not only - or, rather, not so much - a most complicated scientific-technical problem; it is also a very acute and important problem in the sphere of natural resource utilization. The task is constantly to increase the output of iron ore in the KMA by opencast excavation in the most valuable agricultural lands, and also to start up a heavy water-consuming metallurgical process in the steppe-forest zone, where there is an insufficient natural water supply and where the population density is about five times higher than the average density for the U.S.S.R.
The Kursk magnetic Anomaly (KMA) is not only of world significance for its ore deposits and the scale of its exploitation, but is also the object of important interdisciplin~~ry research. It should also be noted that this research is an example of the historic cooperation of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. and Moscow State University. Professor Ernest Ye. Leyst, of Moscow State University, was the first to carry out extensive investigations in the KMA region. He was fotlowed by Academicians Lazarev, Gubkin, Shevyakov, Mel’nikov and others. This worthy tradition had remained up to the present time, when muIti-Iateral research is being carried out, in close contact with local production and administrative bodies, by scientists of the Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences, in Kurst Oblast and by members of the Facuity of Geography, Moscow University in the Belgorod province, i.e. in the south of the KMA.
The overall solution of the problem of the KMA is principally not the scale of expenditure and technical possibilities, but the potential ability of the natural environment to withstand very heavy technogenic loads. Therefore one of the tasks was to study the inherent natural potential of the KMA region; that is, of the initial background on which the technogenic impacts are made. To achieve this a landscape map of the areas was compiled. the structure and the dynamics of natural complexes were analysed and the natural factors which reduce the potential stability of the landscape were identified. Among the matters examined were the inherent, relatively static, but specially variable factors; namely, diversity of landscape, presence of dominant types and relics of landscape, and the prop-
What aspects of the KMA’s problems have attracted the attention of geographers? First, the multi-programme aspects of the exploitation of the KMA require a multi-lateral approach, characteristic of geography; secondly, this problem relates to scientific-technical and social needs; and thirdly,
“Professor, Department of Physical Geography, Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University, Moscow, U.S.S.R. 101
102
erties of surface rocks, as well as external dynamic probability factors, i.e. the possibility of droughts and dust storms, cloudbursts, floods, etc. According to the sum total of such properties, the terrjtory of the KMA can be considered potentially stable in those areas with technogenically unmodified landscape or in those areas with a noncoincidence of natural and technogenic processes which are working in the same direction (e.g. in cases when dust storms do not combine with anthropogenic dust creation). On the whole, the natural environment of the northern parts of the KMA is not only potentially more stable than that in the south, but it is also more plastic, i.e. it is capable of responding more rapidly to external actions and of returning to the initial state, above all with a change in temperature conditions. The more southerly part of the KMA is Iess plastic and reacts more sharply, chiefly to a change in moisture conditions, especially a reduction. There are no areas in the KMA which have not been disturbed by human activity to some degree or other. The evidence of the ‘General Survey’ in 1846 bears witness that for the last 100 yr in Kursk and Belgorod Oblasts the areas of forest have been reduced by half and the areas of arable land correspondingly increased. Precipitation has fallen by about 40-70% and total evaporation by 40-50 mm. As a consequence of the reduction in forest cover, which well absorbs runoff, and of the worsening of the filtration capacity of ploughland, run-off has increased, which has not only increased soil erosion, but has also increased the probability of floods even under conditions of precipitation deficiency. In addition, the level of ground waters has been reduced and with it the possibility of forming perched ground water, drained by ravines. These have ceased supplying the rivers, which have started becoming shallow and have displaced their upper courses downstream. Thus by 1956, at the start of exploitation of the KMA deposits, the structure of the landscape of this region had already been essentially changed in comparison with the last century, mainly by the reduction of watershed forest complexes and the growth of agricultural and gully-ravine complexes. The pattern of contours has become significantly more as has the dissection of natural complicated, environmental complexes. Such a natural background in combination with peculiarities of the position of the ore body and the techniques of ore recovery and enrichment has to a significant degree brought about very complicated problem situations
Geoforumivolume 15 Number l/l984 in the mining area, which involve significant tracts and prolonged periods of action. One of the most crucial problems of the KMA arises from the coincidence in the area of very rich iron ores and fertile soils. This immediately poses such problems as: the permissible level of removal of land from agricultural use; which methods to use of stockpiling top soil and overburden and how to utilize removed chernozem soils; water and wind erosion of topsoil stockpiles; the silting and dust polluting of the surrounding lands and atmosphere; local waterlogging or drying out of particular areas; and the elimination of tips or their recultivation, First of all the problem arises whether it is possible to carry out recultivation everywhere straightaway and what kinds of recultivation are the most socially suitable for the KMA area. The huge reserves of iron ores, their great thickness and the strata configuration of the ore body involve long-term and extensive mining, i.e. the long-term existence of quarries, mines, active tips, vast enrichment complexes and waste-and-slurry storage, as well as the Oskol electrometallurgical plant, the network of engineering communications and other objects. This situation restricts the possibility of universal and rapid recultivation of lands. It seems obvious that the lands to be reclaimed should be returned to agriculture and, as far as possible, this should be done. However, to implement this is not only very difficult, but also is not always expedient, either economically or socially. The difficulty of returning lands to agricultural use lies in that the unbuilt-over lands of the KMA are cut across by a dense network of engineering communications and partially desiccated by the network of water wells and industrial reservoirs. Moreover, agricultural recultivation is one of the most expensive kinds of reclamation, especially if estimating the profitability of the metallurgical plants from the annual expenditures on nature conservation measures. However, if the lands are not returned to agriculture this will eventually influence the structure and specialization of the economy. the configuration of fields and economic boundaries; it will also displace settlements and cause migration of population from valleys to watersheds (the tips mostly occupy the flood plains and gullies). Depending on the type of disruption, the cost of recultivation of one hectare of disrupted land in the KMA is measured at several thousand roubles. In the circumstances of the KMA, social and ecolog-
GeoforumNolume
1.5Number l/1984
ical trends in reclamation are the most significant; that is, recreation, nature conservation and forest restoration. The desirability of these kinds of reclamation is defined by the location of disrupted lands near rapidly growing settlements and by the necessity of increasing the percentage of forest area in the areas undergoing ‘steppification’. Amongst the problems of the KMA is dust pollution of the air basins. The severity of this problem is aggravated by unfavourable natural lithogenic and hydrogeological conditions: firstly, by the finegrained constitution of many formations: loess, loess-like loams, Cretaceous sands (where 95% of the particles are 0.6-0.2 mm in diameter); and secondly, by the dehydration and deflation of these rocks and soils arising from the reduction of the level of ground waters. This natural background coincides with clearly evidenced trends toward rock-grinding in various branches of industry. For example, the ore is milled to the size of 0.05 mm for thorough enrichment. The size of particles is reduced to 0.04 mm in the three-stage process of ore enrichment. Besides sorting and millingdressing plants, the transportation of ores, barren rocks and overburden by open kinds of transport greatly facilitates the process of dust accumulation. This is also true for enterprises of the construction industry, especially for cement plants and plants for the production of chalk, which require milling and drying to obtain high-dispersion particles. From enrichment plants and waste tips there is carried a very fine dust, consisting of 70% silica and iron. The dust particles start to be blown from the dry surface of tips at a wind speed of 4 mlsec. Since the average wind speed in the KMA exceeds the critical ones, the process of dust formation here is a constant factor over a radius of 2-15 km with stationary sources of dust formation, and up to 50 km when the great quantities of chernozem soils are transported. The radius of impact of a dust source depends on its genesis and on local natural conditions. Dust is blown from tips for a distance of about 4 km, this distance being reduced as tips become overgrown with vegetation. Little dust is transported from deep quarries, but during dynamiting a fine dust less than 1.5 mm in diameter settles over a radius of 3-6 km in the north of the KMA and 15 km in the south. Maximum dust accumulation is limited to 2-4 km. The radius of dust-spread during the transportation
103 of unconsolidated rock and soils is about 18 km in the vicinity of Zheleznogorsk and 40 km in the vicinity of Staryy Oskol. One must observe also that the transparency of the atmosphere is influenced by long-distance transport of aerosols from the Donbass. A no less complicated situation arises in the KMA from the combination of heavy water-using enterprises with inadequate natural moisture. The water problem is considered here under three main heads: the general stock of surface and underground waters, the fall in level of ground and underground water, and the pollution of surface waters. Nowadays, in spite of the heavy water consumption in the KMA there are still some reserves of underground and surface waters. But water demand is increasing rapidly, mainly due to enrichment plants and, in the near future, also to a metallurgical plant. In all, industry in KMA requires approximately 80% of the available water supply. Moreover, the area of the KMA is drained by several thousand water bores, which naturally reduce the ground water level. But the fall of this level (based on calculations for the oblast) has not caused a decrease in crop yields, apparently due to improvement of agrotechniques and wider use of fertilizers. The construction of numerous reservoirs for industrial needs and the filling-in of the gully network and small river valleys with waste rock has considerably reduced the drainage capability of the KMA region and, as a result, its ability of selfcleansing. Thus the threat of qualitative exhaustion of water resources is no less dangerous than quantative deficiency. In addition to recirculating water supplies, the construction of purification systems and the switch-over of the first stage of enrichment to dry separation of particles, which will considerably decrease water consumption, there are plans for the inter-basin and inter-zonal transfer of water to the Oskol river. There are other difficult problems. For example, the lack of correspondence between the great capacities and speed of operation of mining machinery, the need for selective stockpiling of overburden material and the thixotropic properties of the chalkmarl rocks. One must also remember that the KMA is the strongest anomaly on Earth and that its magnetic field affects biological objects (yields of
Geoforum/Volume
104 winter wheat, rye, maize, sugarbeet and sunflower in regions with anomalies are lower than in those with a normal magnetic field). Most problems of the KMA are being successfully solved, but those which remained unsolved inflict measurable damage on nature and the economy. We have calculated the losses from environmental disruption as the sums of direct losses from the disruptions of land structure, hydrologic and hydrogeologic regimes, the pollution of the air basin and water bodies, etc. When estimating aesthetic, medical and some other types of disruption it becomes necessary to employ also indirect data on the quality and quantity of pollutants, on the scale of compensation for profits lost due to underproduction, on additional expenditures on water supply, on demolishing and erecting movable equipment and so forth. Integrated estimation of losses gives a basis for the optimization of nature conservation activities. For the KMA area one may suggest the following major groups of nature conservation work: regenerative activities (recultivation, dust filtration, dispersal soil-cover of polluted waters, afforestations, distribution and deep ploughing of fields to intermix the upper soil horizon and decrease concentrations of heavy metals, accumulating in the humus horizon); increase of the land capacity of the region through increasing the heights of tips and of resource capacity through the organization of construction enterprises using overburden rocks; modification of some technological processes, e.g. transportation and tipping operations; employment of special mining technological equipment, suitable for local geological and geographical conditions; use of planning methods (e.g. optimal location in relation to each other of agricultural lands, industry and residence); the optimal breakdown of infrastructure, not exceeding the sub-division of the natural boundaries, etc.; and exploiting the inherent potentialities of the natural environment as a means of self-protection from undesirable technogenic impacts. In the final instance,
considering
the landscape
as
1.5Number 111984
an integrated unit, as a kind of historically drawnout row of statistical data, we evaluated its stability and adaptation, and the possibility of dispersion in space and time of the technogenic impacts on the landscape. As an indicator of the potential resistance of a landscape to external impacts, we took its visual diversity and the level of multiplicity of natural component boundaries. If some natural peculiarities of a region are taken into consideration, it is not necessary, for example, to limit strictly industrial emissions during the whole year. These limits must be introduced only when the time of emission corresponds with a dangerous direction of wind, and also in spring, in the blossom period, when harmful discharge may sharply reduce the biological productivity of the environment. Using the regularities of the regional drainage system, it is possible to direct technogenic, acidified mine-water and other waters to the alkaline areas of Upper Cretaceous carbonate rocks for neutralization. In summary, one should note that, in spite of a relatively low natural potential and coincidence of its action with technogenic prosses, the natural environment of the KMA is now in a state of dynamic equilibrium, that is, in a state where its separate parts are in the main developing proportionally. The existing local disruptions in the natural environment have not yet affected the general state of nature and the economy of the region. Although these disruptions are unavoidable in regions of large mineral deposits with open-cast mining, one should bear in mind that prolonged technogenic influence on the surrounding environment may cause negative cumulated effects. This last point is dangerous, not primarily because of effective land disruption such as tips and quarries, but due to the slow accumulation of slight changes in the biotic part of a landscape. All this forces us to remember constantly that the KMA, with the sum of its problem, is not only a large magnetic anomaly but a geographical anomaly as well. Analysis of such an anomaly calls for the monitoring of the as the most important geographical system undertaking in nature conservation.
1, pp. 201-104,
0016-7185/84 Pcrgamon
lY84
53.00+0.00 Press Ltd
Natural Environmental Potential of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly: Trends and Aspects of Nature Conservation
T. V. ZVONKOVA,”
Moscow, U.S.S.R.
The open-cast exploitation of the massive iron ore deposits in the region of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly (KMA) is having an immense effect on the natural environment. This paper reviews the problems involved and assesses the geographical contribution in what is a long-standing multi-disciplinary and multi-programme approach to economic development. Abstract:
there is the reIevance of the research over a prolonged period. Moreover, the exploitation of the KMA is not only - or, rather, not so much - a most complicated scientific-technical problem; it is also a very acute and important problem in the sphere of natural resource utilization. The task is constantly to increase the output of iron ore in the KMA by opencast excavation in the most valuable agricultural lands, and also to start up a heavy water-consuming metallurgical process in the steppe-forest zone, where there is an insufficient natural water supply and where the population density is about five times higher than the average density for the U.S.S.R.
The Kursk magnetic Anomaly (KMA) is not only of world significance for its ore deposits and the scale of its exploitation, but is also the object of important interdisciplin~~ry research. It should also be noted that this research is an example of the historic cooperation of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. and Moscow State University. Professor Ernest Ye. Leyst, of Moscow State University, was the first to carry out extensive investigations in the KMA region. He was fotlowed by Academicians Lazarev, Gubkin, Shevyakov, Mel’nikov and others. This worthy tradition had remained up to the present time, when muIti-Iateral research is being carried out, in close contact with local production and administrative bodies, by scientists of the Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences, in Kurst Oblast and by members of the Facuity of Geography, Moscow University in the Belgorod province, i.e. in the south of the KMA.
The overall solution of the problem of the KMA is principally not the scale of expenditure and technical possibilities, but the potential ability of the natural environment to withstand very heavy technogenic loads. Therefore one of the tasks was to study the inherent natural potential of the KMA region; that is, of the initial background on which the technogenic impacts are made. To achieve this a landscape map of the areas was compiled. the structure and the dynamics of natural complexes were analysed and the natural factors which reduce the potential stability of the landscape were identified. Among the matters examined were the inherent, relatively static, but specially variable factors; namely, diversity of landscape, presence of dominant types and relics of landscape, and the prop-
What aspects of the KMA’s problems have attracted the attention of geographers? First, the multi-programme aspects of the exploitation of the KMA require a multi-lateral approach, characteristic of geography; secondly, this problem relates to scientific-technical and social needs; and thirdly,
“Professor, Department of Physical Geography, Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University, Moscow, U.S.S.R. 101
102
erties of surface rocks, as well as external dynamic probability factors, i.e. the possibility of droughts and dust storms, cloudbursts, floods, etc. According to the sum total of such properties, the terrjtory of the KMA can be considered potentially stable in those areas with technogenically unmodified landscape or in those areas with a noncoincidence of natural and technogenic processes which are working in the same direction (e.g. in cases when dust storms do not combine with anthropogenic dust creation). On the whole, the natural environment of the northern parts of the KMA is not only potentially more stable than that in the south, but it is also more plastic, i.e. it is capable of responding more rapidly to external actions and of returning to the initial state, above all with a change in temperature conditions. The more southerly part of the KMA is Iess plastic and reacts more sharply, chiefly to a change in moisture conditions, especially a reduction. There are no areas in the KMA which have not been disturbed by human activity to some degree or other. The evidence of the ‘General Survey’ in 1846 bears witness that for the last 100 yr in Kursk and Belgorod Oblasts the areas of forest have been reduced by half and the areas of arable land correspondingly increased. Precipitation has fallen by about 40-70% and total evaporation by 40-50 mm. As a consequence of the reduction in forest cover, which well absorbs runoff, and of the worsening of the filtration capacity of ploughland, run-off has increased, which has not only increased soil erosion, but has also increased the probability of floods even under conditions of precipitation deficiency. In addition, the level of ground waters has been reduced and with it the possibility of forming perched ground water, drained by ravines. These have ceased supplying the rivers, which have started becoming shallow and have displaced their upper courses downstream. Thus by 1956, at the start of exploitation of the KMA deposits, the structure of the landscape of this region had already been essentially changed in comparison with the last century, mainly by the reduction of watershed forest complexes and the growth of agricultural and gully-ravine complexes. The pattern of contours has become significantly more as has the dissection of natural complicated, environmental complexes. Such a natural background in combination with peculiarities of the position of the ore body and the techniques of ore recovery and enrichment has to a significant degree brought about very complicated problem situations
Geoforumivolume 15 Number l/l984 in the mining area, which involve significant tracts and prolonged periods of action. One of the most crucial problems of the KMA arises from the coincidence in the area of very rich iron ores and fertile soils. This immediately poses such problems as: the permissible level of removal of land from agricultural use; which methods to use of stockpiling top soil and overburden and how to utilize removed chernozem soils; water and wind erosion of topsoil stockpiles; the silting and dust polluting of the surrounding lands and atmosphere; local waterlogging or drying out of particular areas; and the elimination of tips or their recultivation, First of all the problem arises whether it is possible to carry out recultivation everywhere straightaway and what kinds of recultivation are the most socially suitable for the KMA area. The huge reserves of iron ores, their great thickness and the strata configuration of the ore body involve long-term and extensive mining, i.e. the long-term existence of quarries, mines, active tips, vast enrichment complexes and waste-and-slurry storage, as well as the Oskol electrometallurgical plant, the network of engineering communications and other objects. This situation restricts the possibility of universal and rapid recultivation of lands. It seems obvious that the lands to be reclaimed should be returned to agriculture and, as far as possible, this should be done. However, to implement this is not only very difficult, but also is not always expedient, either economically or socially. The difficulty of returning lands to agricultural use lies in that the unbuilt-over lands of the KMA are cut across by a dense network of engineering communications and partially desiccated by the network of water wells and industrial reservoirs. Moreover, agricultural recultivation is one of the most expensive kinds of reclamation, especially if estimating the profitability of the metallurgical plants from the annual expenditures on nature conservation measures. However, if the lands are not returned to agriculture this will eventually influence the structure and specialization of the economy. the configuration of fields and economic boundaries; it will also displace settlements and cause migration of population from valleys to watersheds (the tips mostly occupy the flood plains and gullies). Depending on the type of disruption, the cost of recultivation of one hectare of disrupted land in the KMA is measured at several thousand roubles. In the circumstances of the KMA, social and ecolog-
GeoforumNolume
1.5Number l/1984
ical trends in reclamation are the most significant; that is, recreation, nature conservation and forest restoration. The desirability of these kinds of reclamation is defined by the location of disrupted lands near rapidly growing settlements and by the necessity of increasing the percentage of forest area in the areas undergoing ‘steppification’. Amongst the problems of the KMA is dust pollution of the air basins. The severity of this problem is aggravated by unfavourable natural lithogenic and hydrogeological conditions: firstly, by the finegrained constitution of many formations: loess, loess-like loams, Cretaceous sands (where 95% of the particles are 0.6-0.2 mm in diameter); and secondly, by the dehydration and deflation of these rocks and soils arising from the reduction of the level of ground waters. This natural background coincides with clearly evidenced trends toward rock-grinding in various branches of industry. For example, the ore is milled to the size of 0.05 mm for thorough enrichment. The size of particles is reduced to 0.04 mm in the three-stage process of ore enrichment. Besides sorting and millingdressing plants, the transportation of ores, barren rocks and overburden by open kinds of transport greatly facilitates the process of dust accumulation. This is also true for enterprises of the construction industry, especially for cement plants and plants for the production of chalk, which require milling and drying to obtain high-dispersion particles. From enrichment plants and waste tips there is carried a very fine dust, consisting of 70% silica and iron. The dust particles start to be blown from the dry surface of tips at a wind speed of 4 mlsec. Since the average wind speed in the KMA exceeds the critical ones, the process of dust formation here is a constant factor over a radius of 2-15 km with stationary sources of dust formation, and up to 50 km when the great quantities of chernozem soils are transported. The radius of impact of a dust source depends on its genesis and on local natural conditions. Dust is blown from tips for a distance of about 4 km, this distance being reduced as tips become overgrown with vegetation. Little dust is transported from deep quarries, but during dynamiting a fine dust less than 1.5 mm in diameter settles over a radius of 3-6 km in the north of the KMA and 15 km in the south. Maximum dust accumulation is limited to 2-4 km. The radius of dust-spread during the transportation
103 of unconsolidated rock and soils is about 18 km in the vicinity of Zheleznogorsk and 40 km in the vicinity of Staryy Oskol. One must observe also that the transparency of the atmosphere is influenced by long-distance transport of aerosols from the Donbass. A no less complicated situation arises in the KMA from the combination of heavy water-using enterprises with inadequate natural moisture. The water problem is considered here under three main heads: the general stock of surface and underground waters, the fall in level of ground and underground water, and the pollution of surface waters. Nowadays, in spite of the heavy water consumption in the KMA there are still some reserves of underground and surface waters. But water demand is increasing rapidly, mainly due to enrichment plants and, in the near future, also to a metallurgical plant. In all, industry in KMA requires approximately 80% of the available water supply. Moreover, the area of the KMA is drained by several thousand water bores, which naturally reduce the ground water level. But the fall of this level (based on calculations for the oblast) has not caused a decrease in crop yields, apparently due to improvement of agrotechniques and wider use of fertilizers. The construction of numerous reservoirs for industrial needs and the filling-in of the gully network and small river valleys with waste rock has considerably reduced the drainage capability of the KMA region and, as a result, its ability of selfcleansing. Thus the threat of qualitative exhaustion of water resources is no less dangerous than quantative deficiency. In addition to recirculating water supplies, the construction of purification systems and the switch-over of the first stage of enrichment to dry separation of particles, which will considerably decrease water consumption, there are plans for the inter-basin and inter-zonal transfer of water to the Oskol river. There are other difficult problems. For example, the lack of correspondence between the great capacities and speed of operation of mining machinery, the need for selective stockpiling of overburden material and the thixotropic properties of the chalkmarl rocks. One must also remember that the KMA is the strongest anomaly on Earth and that its magnetic field affects biological objects (yields of
Geoforum/Volume
104 winter wheat, rye, maize, sugarbeet and sunflower in regions with anomalies are lower than in those with a normal magnetic field). Most problems of the KMA are being successfully solved, but those which remained unsolved inflict measurable damage on nature and the economy. We have calculated the losses from environmental disruption as the sums of direct losses from the disruptions of land structure, hydrologic and hydrogeologic regimes, the pollution of the air basin and water bodies, etc. When estimating aesthetic, medical and some other types of disruption it becomes necessary to employ also indirect data on the quality and quantity of pollutants, on the scale of compensation for profits lost due to underproduction, on additional expenditures on water supply, on demolishing and erecting movable equipment and so forth. Integrated estimation of losses gives a basis for the optimization of nature conservation activities. For the KMA area one may suggest the following major groups of nature conservation work: regenerative activities (recultivation, dust filtration, dispersal soil-cover of polluted waters, afforestations, distribution and deep ploughing of fields to intermix the upper soil horizon and decrease concentrations of heavy metals, accumulating in the humus horizon); increase of the land capacity of the region through increasing the heights of tips and of resource capacity through the organization of construction enterprises using overburden rocks; modification of some technological processes, e.g. transportation and tipping operations; employment of special mining technological equipment, suitable for local geological and geographical conditions; use of planning methods (e.g. optimal location in relation to each other of agricultural lands, industry and residence); the optimal breakdown of infrastructure, not exceeding the sub-division of the natural boundaries, etc.; and exploiting the inherent potentialities of the natural environment as a means of self-protection from undesirable technogenic impacts. In the final instance,
considering
the landscape
as
1.5Number 111984
an integrated unit, as a kind of historically drawnout row of statistical data, we evaluated its stability and adaptation, and the possibility of dispersion in space and time of the technogenic impacts on the landscape. As an indicator of the potential resistance of a landscape to external impacts, we took its visual diversity and the level of multiplicity of natural component boundaries. If some natural peculiarities of a region are taken into consideration, it is not necessary, for example, to limit strictly industrial emissions during the whole year. These limits must be introduced only when the time of emission corresponds with a dangerous direction of wind, and also in spring, in the blossom period, when harmful discharge may sharply reduce the biological productivity of the environment. Using the regularities of the regional drainage system, it is possible to direct technogenic, acidified mine-water and other waters to the alkaline areas of Upper Cretaceous carbonate rocks for neutralization. In summary, one should note that, in spite of a relatively low natural potential and coincidence of its action with technogenic prosses, the natural environment of the KMA is now in a state of dynamic equilibrium, that is, in a state where its separate parts are in the main developing proportionally. The existing local disruptions in the natural environment have not yet affected the general state of nature and the economy of the region. Although these disruptions are unavoidable in regions of large mineral deposits with open-cast mining, one should bear in mind that prolonged technogenic influence on the surrounding environment may cause negative cumulated effects. This last point is dangerous, not primarily because of effective land disruption such as tips and quarries, but due to the slow accumulation of slight changes in the biotic part of a landscape. All this forces us to remember constantly that the KMA, with the sum of its problem, is not only a large magnetic anomaly but a geographical anomaly as well. Analysis of such an anomaly calls for the monitoring of the as the most important geographical system undertaking in nature conservation.