New Technology of Reclamation of Slopes of Waste and Excavated Rocks of Mines and Quarries

Abstract

The urgent environmental problem of industrial Kryvbas is the reduction of dust formation from wind erosion of bare surfaces, especially slopes, dumps of iron ore mines and quarries. The best way to reduce the dusting of dumps is to afforest their surface with trees and bushes, but naturally this process can take up to 15-20 years, and the well-known scientific developments to solve this problem are ineffective or too time-consuming. The objective of our work is to create the innovative technology for active stimulation of self-organized vegetation of hard-to-reach steep slopes of dumps. To implement the idea, it is proposed to use standard hydroseeders for a new purpose, in particular, HM-0-HARV Turbo Turf hydroseeder, which is able to create hydroflow at a distance of 30-50 m. The article describes in detail the essence of the developed technology, method of organizing and conducting hydraulic sowing from both the lower and upper edge of the dumps. It is recommended to include seeds of herbaceous grass and legumes, deciduous trees and shrubs, mineral fertilizers and nutrient substrate (sewage sludge) in the seeding hydraulic mixture. The proportion of seeds of various plant species, fertilizers and nutrient substrate in the hydraulic mixture for sowing on the slopes of Kryvyi Rih dumps, which have a neutral soil acidity and contain at least 3% of the fine fraction of rocks in the surface structure, is substantiated. According to the results of testing the proposed technology, it is concluded that applying a mixture of seeds of herbaceous plants, trees and shrubs in combination with mineral fertilizers and nutrient substrate to the surface of dump slopes by hydroflow accelerates their self-organized vegetation by about 3-4 times. It is shown that crop care measures in the first year of plant vegetation (periodic watering and, if necessary, fertilizing using hydroseeder) can save up to 60-75% of seedlings and help stabilize newly created biogeocenosis in subsequent years.