Territories shelled by russians have to be deserted or conserved, environmental expert says
However, there is a way to clean the land from the effects of war.
We recently talked about the damage to soils caused by military munitions: toxic gases are released into the air, shell fragments remain in the ground, explosives change the landscape and kill vegetation and beneficial insects, and pollutants enter aquifers, all of which ultimately lead to land degradation.
Yulia Avramenko, an expert and project coordinator of the Ekoltava public organization, says one of the ways to restore lands after the shelling is to leave the territory and conserve it, meaning removing the site from use with subsequent conservation and a ban on visiting.
France had a similar experience: after the First World War, 1,200 km² of land in the area of the Battle of Verdun was so mutilated by artillery shelling that the destoyed landscape still exists. It is still forbidden to enter some sites; unexploded shells and their fragments can still be found on the territory. However, it is not a fact that we will apply this experience in Ukraine.
According to expert Avramenko, it is possible to return the land to a normal state. First, we'll need to clean soil as much as possible from the remains of shells, mines, etc., so that they don't continue to pollute the ground for many years in a row, and second, to carry out reclamation of the lands.
You can read about it in Rubryka's article, devoted to soil recovery after artillery shelling.
