ECOLOGICAL ATLAS OF KHARKOV REGION IN UKRAINE

Levenets V.V.,1 Omelnik O.P.,1 Stchur A.O., 1Zaporozhchenko V.A., 1Behanzin G.J.,2

National Science Center "Kharkov Institute of Physics & Technology''2 , 1, Akademicheskaya str, Kharkov, 61108, Ukraine, Fax: (0572)351688, e-mail: levenets@kipt.kharkov.ua; Kharkov National University, Department of Biochemistry, 4, pl.Svobody, Kharkov, 61077, Ukraine2

The last few decades have seen an unprecedented increase in man contacts with numerous human and industrial waste products and environmental pollutants which cause several human diseases resulting in disability or premature aging of people. Among them, heavy metals are the most hazardous to human health as they penetrate into human body with food, water, air or through skin. They are involved in the pathological states associated with disfunction of nervous and secretion systems, kidney, liver and both circulatory and bone systems. Salts of heavy metals stimulate malignant tumor growth. They are not cleared from the body by natural way. On the contrary, these chemical elements migrate from one objects to another where they may selectively accumulate, thus increasing the extent of pollution.

Heavy metals and their compounds accompany, as a rule, the cities with developed industry. Kharkov and its suburbs ( 31,400 km2 ) is a well-developed industrial region of Ukraine where heavy engineering industry, chemical, textile and pharmaceutical chemistry industries and thermal power-stations are grouped. But up to now, the concentration of heavy metals in different components of Kharkov region ecosystem has not been exactly evaluated.

The present project is aimed at evaluating the extent of environmental pollution by heavy metals in different parts of Kharkov region. Analysis of the pollution extent of different components of ecosystem ( soil, water, ground, sediments, snow, plants, animals, etc. ) makes possible the characterization of ecological situation in different areas of Kharkov region.

Content of heavy metals in the samples of soil, water, bottom sediments, snow and biological objects has been determined by the methods of PIXE ( particle-induced X-ray emission) and PIGME ( particle-induced gamma-ray emission). The method used permits to detect and analyze about 30 chemical elements in the range from lithium to uranium in different objects in one analysis.

Based on the data obtained, the maps of terrestrial abundance of the elements in Kharkov region are compiling. A study has been made of ability of different plants and other bio-objects to accumulate heavy metals. Effect of heavy metals causing

deep changes in the structure, composition, transport properties of cellular membranes and cell function in organism has been evaluated.

Disfunction of lipid, Ca+2 and protein metabolism in bio-objects has been found to depend upon the extent of environmental contamination by heavy metals.

The authors of the project pioneered the use of the integrated approach described to investigate the heavy metals concentration in various environmental objects and to evaluate the extent to which the environment is polluted. Mapping methods are used and maps of distribution of heavy metals in the Region are in progress. The data obtained will allow further investigations aimed at understanding the possible relationship between an incidence of diseases and the extent of environmental pollution with heavy metals in Kharkov Region.