Atlas of Contaminated Sites

Notable case, Monchegorsk, Murmansk Oblast, Russia

Monchegorsk nickel-copper smelter and industrial barren

Мончегорск

At Monchegorsk on the Kola Peninsula, sulphur dioxide and metal emissions from a nickel-copper smelter destroyed the vegetation around the plant, creating a subarctic 'industrial barren' from the 1950s. It is one of the world's most studied places for the effects of pollution on boreal ecosystems and for revegetation trials with amendments.

PhytoremediationMycoremediation

Status
Under assessment
People affected
45,361 (2010)2
Media
soil, air, living organisms
Kind of site
smelter, mining
  1. Area. No overall figure for the denuded area was found. A campaign of 506 soil samples covered 343 hectares of industrial barren near the smelter (Dvornikov et al. 2025): that is the area sampled, not the extent of the damage.
  2. People affected. Town population at the 2010 census (Wikipedia); not an estimate of people exposed.

Contaminants

Metals

Other inorganics

Status

Under assessment

The plant, part of the Norilsk Nickel group, is operating. According to company figures reported by Wikipedia, SO2 emissions in the area fell from 88.3 thousand tonnes in 1998 to 37.3 thousand in 2016. The soils remain heavily contaminated (up to about 30 g/kg of copper and of nickel, Dvornikov et al. 2025) and are the subject of experimental restoration trials, not of an overall clean-up.

Story

The settlement arose in the 1930s to serve the copper and nickel mines of the Monchetundra massif and was granted town status in 1937 (Wikipedia). Nickel, cobalt and copper are produced there today at a Norilsk Nickel plant. The Kola Peninsula's nickel industry has been the largest source of sulphur dioxide and heavy metals in Northern Europe (Tregubova et al. 2021).

Deposition from the air has led to total or partial loss of vegetation and to soil erosion. The industrial barren around Monchegorsk has been forming since the 1950s; total soil concentrations of up to 29.87 g/kg copper and 30.12 g/kg nickel have been measured, unevenly distributed according to soil type, relief and calcium and iron content (Dvornikov et al. 2025).

Decades of research along the pollution gradient describe an impoverished but not dead ecosystem: the mountain birches (Betula pubescens subsp. czerepanovii) surviving in the barrens reproduce as much as those in unpolluted forest, possibly because the most sensitive individuals have already been eliminated (Kozlov and Zvereva 2004).

Timeline

  1. 1937Monchegorsk is granted town status (Wikipedia).
  2. 1950From the 1950s the industrial barren forms around the smelter.
  3. 1998SO2 emissions at 88.3 thousand tonnes a year (company figure, from Wikipedia).
  4. 2016SO2 emissions at 37.3 thousand tonnes (company figure, from Wikipedia).
  5. 2025The mapping of copper and nickel over 343 hectares of industrial barren is published.

Health

A study of 30,448 pregnancy outcomes in Monchegorsk between 1973 and 2011 found a perinatal prevalence of birth defects of 36.1 per 1,000 births, doubling over the period; the authors do not identify the cause and recommend further investigation (Postoev et al. 2015). The study does not attribute the rise to pollution.

Remediation

  1. —emission reductionSO2 emissions cut by almost 60% between 1998 and 2016 (Norilsk Nickel figure, from Wikipedia).

Plants and fungi at this site

PhytoremediationField scale

Field experiment on industrially polluted peat soil in the Murmansk region: serpentine-bearing materials from the overburden of the Kovdor phlogopite mine, with or without thermal activation, were added to the soil to create a geochemical barrier and allow a plant cover. The abstract does not name the species sown.

Outcome In the most mobile fraction copper, nickel, iron and aluminium fell 3–18, 3–23, 5–26 and 2–42 times respectively, mainly because pH rose; 25% by volume of serpentine material was enough for a stable plant cover.

PhytoremediationGreenhouse, with soil from the site

Lolium perenne

Perennial ryegrass grown on soils contaminated by the Kola Peninsula nickel-copper smelter, with and without natural iron-manganese nodules from the Gulf of Finland as an immobilising agent; plants and microorganisms were compared as indicators of success. The scale (pot or plot) is not stated in the abstract.

Outcome The nodules lowered soluble metals and shoot metal content and clearly improved growth. Among microbial indicators, community-level physiological profiling, biomass carbon and basal respiration responded; bacterial and fungal counts and enzyme activity proved unreliable.

MycoremediationLaboratory, with soil from the site

A 120-day incubation of two Kola Peninsula soils at different stages of degradation: a humic preparation, wood biochar and a peat gel supplied with mycorrhizal fungi were compared with NPK fertiliser and lime. The fungi are not identified in the abstract and their effect is not separated from that of the gel.

Outcome The organic amendments raised soil carbon, lowered acidity and extractable metals and improved plant growth. The stabilising effect increased from biochar to peat gel, lime and the humic preparation; the biochar treatments were the most productive.

From the literature

Species that acted on one of this site's contaminants in at least one study. The list is automatic and takes no account of this site's soil, concentrations or climate.

Plants

Fungi

The rest are on the contaminant pages.

Sources

  1. Dvornikov Y. et al. Soil type and content of macro-elements determine hotspots of Cu and Ni accumulation in soils of subarctic industrial barren: inference from a cascade machine learning, Environmental Pollution, 2025
  2. Kozlov M.V., Zvereva E.L. Reproduction of mountain birch along a strong pollution gradient near Monchegorsk, Northwestern Russia, Environmental Pollution, 2004
  3. Postoev V.A. et al. Prevalence of birth defects in an Arctic Russian setting from 1973 to 2011: a register-based study, Reproductive Health, 2015
  4. Tregubova P. et al. Organic amendments potentially stabilize metals in smelter contaminated Arctic soils: An incubation study, Heliyon, 2021
  5. Monchegorsk, Wikipedia, 2026

Draft compiled from public sources, not yet reviewed.