ИСТИНА

The question of development of artificial soils is expected to be very vital. It’s a well-known fact that all plants need light, organisms, nutrients and organic matter, air, heat and water. In drylands there is a huge shortage of water. For example, amount of precipitation in arid zone is less than 1 liter a day, and Date Palm requirements in water are 7-11 liters a day. So, the problem of available water is the main factor that limits plant productivity for arid zone. During irrigation of native soils a large amount of water is lost. The reason of water losses is the formation of the preferential flows. As a result, upper layer of soil is not moistened, and available water move from root habitat to deeper soil layers. In the chart, you can see the examples of solution migration in native soils. That leads to non-productive drainage losses. Thus, the main purpose of artificial soil design in urban lands and arid territories is to decrease non-productive water losses. That’s why the necessity of soil creations is so important. In order to create artificial soil, substrates with suitable properties preventing non-productive losses and preserving available water are used. We use different substrates such as native soil material, peat, sand, natural and synthetic polymers and their combinations and mixtures to construct artificial soils appropriate to sustainable functioning in different climatic zones. You can see the main properties of these substrates. We would like to present you the results of one of the experiments conducted by our research group. In this picture you can see the stages of soil creation, the result of which was the formation of two variants of artificial soils. Both soils consisted of the absolutely identical horizons: native soil, peat and sand. We would like to attract your attention that the first variant is layered soil while the second variant is mixture of these horizons. The native soil was taken as the control variant. While the native soil and mix construction demonstrated average productivity of grass, the layered soil showed significant biomass growth in the first year of our research. The application of fertilizers wasn’t used in our research. We know that each native soil has its own unique biodiversity and metabolic activity. Unfortunately, the intensive land use causes the extinction of some groups of soil organisms in urban areas. In the processes of creation of artificial soil we use non-native substrates which contain a lot of non-native microorganisms. According to our research the number of soil cellulolytic fungi group degrades apparently in urban soil, while in the artificial soil the amount of fungi group increases steadily creating the better biodiversity. . It is necessary to mention about some possible risks that are likely to appear while using artificial soils. Some substrates containing a lot of different organisms can be potentially pathogenic for human and plants without propriety and preliminary estimation of using artificial soils. So, in the process of the development and integration artificial soils into native or urban soils the following factors should be taken into account: 1) The first one. Initial data for design. There are - Understanding the purposes of artificial soils using. - Researching and estimating the environmental parameters and soil substrates characteristics to design artificial soils with precise properties. 2) The second one. - The complex of modern investigation methods from different fields of study such as agrophysics, microbiology, agrochemistry, climatology, computer simulation and modeling, etc. is used to design, control and correct the artificial soils’ optimal behavior. 3) The third. Possible risks in drylands. There are - Salinization as a result of irrigation - Pathogens for plants and human - Degradation of different artificial soil’s properties To sum up our research is divided into several stages: To begin with, we do laboratory analyses to get physical, chemical and biological properties of substrates as input data for computer simulation. Then, the results of computer simulation provide us with different variants and numbers of substrates to design initial models of artificial soils. These initial models are tested in field experiment. The results provide us with true data of functioning and behavior of artificial soils. Due to the true data we are able to prognose the artificial soil behavior in different climate conditions. Finally, we get the new advanced technology of creation sustainable artificial soils. We would like to recommend you to use these technology for specific landscapes.