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In freshwater ecosystems, the efficiency of transfer of essential substances from phytoplankton to zooplankton, measured as the ratio of the production of these substances in zooplankton to their production in phytoplankton, determines the functioning of higher trophic levels. In addition to carbon, primary producers transfer essential substances up the trophic chain, including polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P). The transfer efficiency of these substances varies greatly in nature depending on environmental factors, thus affecting the quality of biological resources. The goal of this review was to analyze mechanisms regulating the efficiency of transfer of essential substances from phytoplankton to zooplankton and to establish the main factors that may have impact on the efficiency of their transfer.

Since the second half of the 70s of the twentieth century, the ecosystems of lakes Batorino, Myastro and Naroch have undergone stages of anthropogenic eutrophication, targeted deeutrophication and benthification caused by the introduction of the filter-feeding mollusk Dreissena polymorpha Pallas. The set of continuous series of seasonal mean values of eight parameters of each ecosystem obtained in 1978-2015 were analyzed by mathematical-statistical methods of principal components (PCA) and singular spectra (SSA). The analysis showed that the complex long-term dynamics of the set of selected characteristics of the ecosystems of Lake Batorino and Lake Myastro during this period of time was described by three main components by 92 % and 90 % respectively, and the ecosystem of Lake Naroch - by five main components by 94 %. A biological interpretation of these principal components was proposed, i. e. a hypothesis was put forward as to which factors had the greatest influence on the ecosystem dynamics in those years. The first main factor which determined the dynamics of the ecosystems of lakes Batorino, Myastro and Naroch by 63, 65 and 43 % respectively, was interpreted as the resistance of the lake ecosystem to variable biogenic load, which is inversely related to the trophicity of the reservoir. The second main factor, whose contribution to the dynamics of the Naroch lakes ecosystem parameters (in the same order) amounted to 21, 15 and 22 %, was interpreted as solar radiation activity. The interpretation of the third main factor depends on the properties of a particular ecosystem. For ecosystems which are not deficient in biogenic elements (Lakes Batorino and Myastro, the contribution of the factor to the ecosystem dynamics was 8 and 10 %), it can be interpreted as the transfer of the created primary organic matter to consumers of the next trophic level, associated with the structure of the food chain in the ecosystem. For an ecosystem in which the process of primary production formation is limited by the available amount of biogenic elements (Lake Naroch, 13 % contribution of the third main factor to ecosystem dynamics), it is this available amount of nutrients that is the third main factor affecting its long-term dynamics. The fourth main factor, which determined the dynamics of Lake Naroch ecosystem by 9 %, is also connected with the process of primary production formation. Only the fifth main factor, which determined the dynamics of the ecosystem of Lake Naroch during the time period under consideration by 7 %, controls the transfer of primary production to consumers of the first trophic level. Thus, the conducted statistical study not only confirmed empirically established regularities in the functioning of lake ecosystems, but also for the first time allowed us to obtain quantitative assessments of significance of each main factor for ecosystem development in specific circumstances, depending on the degree of trophicity of water body.

In the bottom sediments of lakes Cheko and Zapovednoye, located in the southern part of the Evenk region (Krasnoyarsk Territory), the distributions of charcoal particles >100 microns have been analyzed. The background content of charcoal particles in sediments up to 1500 years ago was not less than in recent sediments. Thus, evidence was obtained that the intensity of fires in the vicinity of the studied lakes in the past was not less than at present, and during the XVI-XVIII centuries it was possibly even higher. Therefore, a sharp increase in forest fires in recent times reported for other regions is not confirmed for this territory, which is probably due to the lack of economic activity due to the extremely low population density. In Lake Cheko, a local maximum of charcoal particles was revealed at the sediments corresponding to the year of 1908, presumably being the trace of an extensive forest fire resulted from Tunguska 1908 catastrophe.

The results of the analysis of changes in the productivity of forest, bog and arable ecosystems in the eastern part of the Belarusian Polesye in 2000-2020 are presented. Satellite imagery (MODIS radiometer of the Terra satellite) was used. Ecosystem productivity was assessed according to the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The correlation between changes in climatic indicators and NDVI has been studied. It was found that the studied ecosystems differ in response to climatic changes. Statistically significant positive NDVI trends were found for forest and bog ecosystems. A reliable correlation of this indicator with the average summer temperature and summer precipitation has not been established. Arable ecosystems are characterized by the absence of a statistically significant trend in productivity and a significant negative correlation of NDVI with temperature and a positive correlation with precipitation. The effect of climatic characteristics on the NDVI of arable ecosystems depends on their soil type.

The paper presents modern data on the demographic structure and population size of C. calceolus on the territory of European Russia. The assessment of the species distribution and population size is based on the classification of the terrestrial ecoregions of the World. The long-term dynamics of the number and age structure (150 populations) of C. calceolus was revealed for the 20-year research period 1997-2020. It has been reliably determined that the number of generative plants is positively related to temperature indicators, while the number of pregenerative groups depends on humidity factors and negatively on temperature. Three types of basic age spectra were identified: 1) centered 3 : 10 : 47 : 40 (juvenile (j): immature (im): virginal (v): generative (g)), the most common in the European part of the Russian Federation (RF); 2) bimodal 15 : 26 : 33 : 26 (j: im: v: g), mainly found in the western regions; 3) right-sided 0 : 3 : 13 : 82 : 2 (j : im : v : g : s), which is steadily appears in the continental climate of the eastern regions of European Russia. The current baseline spectra of C. calceolus populations differ from the baseline spectrum of the species given in the 20th century. The base spectra reliable depends on ecological-phytocenotic plant community structure and abiotic features of habitats, it was shown using the scales of ecological indicator values.

The article offers a review of the existing methods to remove suspended solids from industrial wastewater. The mechanical and physicochemical techniques which are in use already and to be in service in the short term are discussed. It is shown that each specific mine needs its own selection of a package of wastewater treatment methods.

In this study, the synthesis of nickel oxalate was investigated from an extract solution of nickel laterite using precipitation method. The experimention determined the best conditions of nickel oxalate synthesis. To optimize the process, Response Surface Method was applied on the experimental data. The kinetics study of the synthesis process shows that the approach using the Avrami model gives a better approach than the first order integral model. The activation energy generated from the kinetics study with this model is 36.5221 kJ/mol.

The authors propose a novel methodological approach to up-to-date integrated satellite monitoring for studying origination of source zones of natural and induced catastrophes at large-scale subsoil use facilities in Siberia. This approach uses multimodal experimental geomechanical and geodynamic data of Earth remote sensing and digital technologies. This allows orientation at various applied aspects of mining technologies with regard to transition to processing and analysis of Big Data on slow deformation wave processes from the standpoint of nonlinear ‘geomechanical thermodynamics’. The article describes the estimation method for the Earth’s crust surface in Kuzbass Coal Basin using the lineament field analysis and the two-dimensional radar-base satellite data of Earth remote sensing. The use of the geoinformation technology software and testing results are presented as a case-study of a disastrous landslide at a large open pit coal mine in linkage with thermodynamic periods in the geomechanical behavior of the object of monitoring.

Slope fracture detection is critical in the safety management of the open-pit mine, and the non-timely detection of slope fractures may cause landslide or other serious consequences. To prevent the unexpected accidents caused by the failure of slope integrity, this paper proposes an intelligent fracture detection algorithm based on improved Mask R-CNN, which can address the limitations of traditional image processing algorithm and the classical deep learning model directly to the open-pit mine slope crack detection. In this paper, we use the integrated features of Mask R-CNN in target detection, segmentation and location, improve the shortcomings of Mask branch, such as unclear edges and false detections, and construct a detection and segmentation framework for slope fracture images of the open-pit mine. This method introduces dilated convolution neural network, and a classify segmentation iterative up-sampling operation into the mask branch, which can solve the problem of slope fracture Mask’s rough edge. Experimental results show that compared with the traditional crack segmentation algorithm, this method has higher recognition accuracy and better segmentation effect.

Methods proposed for mine water treatment use different advanced equipment such as aerators and circular settling tanks which ensure increase in pH and decrease in impurity concentrations by 10-50 times. Passive mine water treatment uses small cascade ponds, which enables additional purification of water due to deceleration in water flow velocity and because of the longer time of interaction between impurities and reagents. The reconstruction of the existing system of three treatment stages can reduce pollution of surface and ground water, which brings essential improvement of ecology and minimizes damage caused to the hydrosphere.