THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF THE URBANIZATION FACTORS ON THE KARST PROCESS ACTIVATION HAZARD IN THE REGIONS OF UKRAINE

Abstract

The article presents the analysis of the exogenous geological process activation hazards, namely karst, in the conditions of urbanization processes. The scale of geoecological problems is shown to be directly or indirectly determined by the scale of urbanization. The relevance of the research is associated with the study of the nature of changes in the expansion of karst rocks in regions with different levels of urbanization in the period 2001 – 2020. The main aim is to analyze the hazards of karst development in relation with the factors of urbanization processes in the regions of Ukraine based on the indicator method. The particular characteristics of the impact of urbanized territories on the initiation of natural disasters and geological hazards have been determined. The urbogenic load of the regions was assessed using determined and calculated earlier indicators of ecological and ecological-demographic urbanization. The assessment of the dependence between the hazard indicator of the spread of karst rocks and the indicator of ecological urbanization in the regional context has been carried out. It is shown that in the third part of the regions, the growing hazard levels of karst processes practically coincide with the growth of the ecological urbanization index. A nearly doubling of the area of karst terrains was noted during 2001 – 2020 in all administrative regions. The coefficient of expansion of karst territories for the specified period has been calculated. Four groups of regions were identified according to the increase in karst areas in comparison with the hazards of karst processes and the index of ecological-demographic urbanization. Expansion of open karst areas in the Transcarpathian, Odessa, Rivne, Kherson, Chernivtsi regions was noted. For this group of regions, a tendency to increase the areas of surface karst in accordance with an increase in the values of urbanization indicators has been established. This is due to the exploitation of natural territorial resources, changes in the nature of land use, depletion of vegetation cover, anthropogenic loads on the ground, and imbalances in the interaction of surface and underground waters in urbanized areas. Thus, the Ukraine’s regions with different urbogenic load are differentiated depending on the territorial indicator of the danger of karst terrains, as well as the dynamics of changes in the areas of karst rocks.