Abstract

Flood lowlands due to their geographical location are among natural objects being most of all influenced by human activity. Pollutants come to the floodlowlands both as the result of agri-technologies and during flood occurrences. At the last case pollutants come from the upper areas of the river catchment.

High natural fertility of the floodplain soils caused their intensive utilization mainly for vegetables growing. Vegetables are growth within the floodplain territory of the Oka, Moskva and Yahroma rivers to supply Moscow. Amelioration system construction has radically modified soil formation processes, water rotation and elements migration. Natural and anthropogenic sources of pollution caused floodplain landscapes contamination.

The results of field investigations on floodlowland agrolandscapes’ are suggested in the paper. Research has being conducted in the Moscow region within the Oka-river and the Yakhroma-river catchments. The above mentioned river belongs to the upstream of the Volga-river catchment. Big farms specialized on the vegetable cultivations are located in this area.

As the result, of investigations having been done, it is fixed that 11-1290 g/m3 of sediments are accumulated within the Oka-river bottomland during flood. Bottomland soils and flood sediments are polluted with heavy metals. Heavy metal content in sediments is by 20-25% higher than in the surface soil layer (Yashin etc. 2004a). River, flood, subsurface and drainage flow is polluted with biogen substances, heavy metals and organic compounds. Organic compounds come to the bottomland during floods together with surface run-off and returning river water and also in summer period with agricultural chemicals.

Keywords: floodplain landscapes, floods, floods sediments, soils, pollution, heavy metals, water quality.