In Novosibirsk, the effect of de-icing reagents with chlorine on soil pollution in roadside areas was measured

In Novosibirsk, a soil analysis was carried out to assess the effect of chlorine-containing road mixtures on the pollution of roadside areas. The head of the city department for improvement of public spaces, Vadim Poleshchuk, spoke about the results of the study at a meeting of the city commission.

In 2024, the Novosibirsk City Hall will implement a pilot project to renovate the city’s street landscaping in the territories of Dzerzhinsky, Pervomaisky and Sovetsky districts as part of a comprehensive automotive repair of roads and lawns. When preparing the project, researchers from the Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IPA SB RAS) carried out an analysis of the state of the soil cover in the areas of mechanized snow removal and storage, which showed that the implementation of the project in terms of landscaping will require preparatory work, in particular, replacement lawn soils.

Vadim Poleshchuk drew the attention of city deputies to the fact that a significant part of the larches in the central part of the city – on Michurin, Gorky streets and in a number of other places – are “in a rather deplorable state.” Soil analysis in these places showed a significant excess in the content of water-soluble sodium and chlorine. According to the official, these are the consequences of storing snow on lawns that is removed from the roadway. “It is necessary to significantly reconsider approaches to mechanized cleaning of roads in winter. With the existing approach, new green spaces are subject to negative impacts due to the storage of snow banks in the areas under consideration and the use of chemical reagents,” noted the head of city improvement.

At the heart of Bionord, actively used for winter maintenance of Novosibirsk streets– a mixture of sodium and calcium chlorides, marble chips, sodium formates and potassium chloride

“The work carried out on the chemical analysis of urban soil samples taken in November 2023 in Novosibirsk (on roadside lawns at the beginning of Krasny Prospekt near the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, roadside lawns surrounding Pervomaisky Square along Krasny Prospekt, along Maxim Gorky and Sovetskaya streets, in the central part of Pervomaisky square) made it possible to establish a significant increase in the content of water-soluble sodium and chlorine in urban soils of roadside lawns compared to the central part of Pervomaisky square. For sodium and chlorine, this increase was 24 and 80 times, respectively. Such significant changes in the chemical properties of roadside urban soils are caused by the use of de-icing reagents, which results in inhibition of plant growth and development, even to the point of their death,” conclude scientists from the IPA SB RAS based on the results of the study.

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