GEOINFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN SOLVING THE TASKS TO MONITOR DISTURBED LANDS OF MINING LANDSCAPES DURING RESTORATION BASED ON SATELLITE AND SURFACE OBSERVATIONS.

Intensive consumption of natural resources has resulted in the irreversible degradation of the Earth’s shell of soil; species biodiversity is reduced at all levels - from genetic diversity within individual populations to species and ecosystems diversity in the biosphere. The preservation and restoration of the soil shell, the main resource of the Earth, is the most urgent and difficult task of civilization, since the soil-vegetation cover, being the life-support environment of man, is at the same time the basis of nature management. Based on the study of the self-organized nature of soils, the specialists of the Mining Institute KSC RAS have substantiated a methodology and developed a technology for restoring disturbed lands of the mining complex in accordance with the natural soil formation concept, according to which the soil is a product of rock, biota, climate, relief and time interaction. The restoration of disturbed lands within the framework of the concept is considered as an evolution of the “rock - plant” system in specific climatic conditions through creation of a sown gramineous phytocenosis without applying a topsoil layer, which ensures the formation of a biologically active environment. In order to study the dynamics of the biological organization of rocks, a surface monitoring system of restored lands was developed. The system includes a comprehensive and simultaneous study of genetic parameters (mineralogical composition, particle size distribution, chemical composition, density, porosity, moisture content) and functional indicators (medium reaction, redox potential, degree of saturation with bases, the content of mobile forms of chemical elements) of forming soils. A methodical approach was developed to assess the state of disturbed lands of mining landscapes and the dynamics of their restoration using satellite data based on an analysis of the spatial and temporal distribution of coordinated (consistent) vegetation index values. The paper observes the prospects for the use of geo information technologies when creating a complex monitoring system of disturbed lands with the aim of integrating satellite and surface observations to study the restoration dynamics, creating a biologically active environment, at the stage of phytocenosis formation with the structure of a surrounding natural landscape.The choice of ArcGIS software has been substantiated for the integrated solution of tasks of collecting, storing, analysing and graphing visualization of spatially distributed (geographic) data and related information about the objects under study. The ArcGIS platform includes tools for working with spatial databases (including those managed by universal DBMS), raster and vector graphics editors, and various spatial data analysis tools. The software allows specialists to combine a geoinformation system with analytics, which leads to high-quality and fast decision making due to reducing time to search and analyse the necessary information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]