Scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences will comprehensively study the ecological environment of Taimyr and prepare recommendations on the best environmental solutions for the industrial companies’ operation in the Arctic region. The complex expedition to the peninsula will take place at the invitation of Nornickel.
According to the press service of the company, the mission of the expedition is much wider than the range of local environmental issues. It is assumed that its results will form the basis of a new concept and principles of management in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. The work will proceed taking into account the experience of different countries mining natural resources in the polar latitudes.
The team includes specialists in various fields – from geology to botany, from petrochemistry to economic forecasting. All of them have field practice experience.
The main route points of the Big Norilsk Expedition will be the basins of the Taimyr rivers Pyasina, Norilka and Ambarnaya, as well as lakes Pyasino and Lama. For five months, from July to November 2020, scientists from 14 institutes of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SB RAS) will have to assess the scale of changes that have taken place in the region in recent years.
“This kind of deep research at the Arctic Circle has not been carried out for several decades. Since the founding of the Siberian Branch, its main difference has been the principles of multidisciplinary research and their close relationship with industry. Today we are confident that only by combining the competencies of the leading institutes of the Siberian macroregion, one can count on an effective applied result that will be in demand by Russian companies operating in this region, – noted the scientific leader of the expedition, chairman of the SB RAS, academician Valentin Parmon. – A detailed study of the data in the main areas of research – water, bottom sediments, atmosphere, soils, biodiversity, engineering and geocryological conditions – will allow to form a holistic picture of anthropogenic and natural changes for the development of both specific recommendations and a general concept of economic management in the Arctic”.
“Without a deep study of the Arctic regions and reliable scientific knowledge about them, it is impossible to make plans for the future”, Vladimir Potanin, president of Nornickel, commented on the beginning of the research work. “To implement large-scale plans for the development of the Arctic, it is important to know what geological and biochemical processes have resulted from climatic and anthropogenic changes. Nornickel, as a leader in the industrial development of the region, realizes its responsibility and intends to revise the existing approach to industrial ecology, based on the results of the Great Norilsk Expedition”.
Text: Tatiana Ermolaeva, Photo: open sources
