Introduction. There is a potential danger of long-term accumulation of salts and, as a consequence, their adverse impact on the environment. The desire to prevent this danger dictates the need to detect indices that will be in demand for measures to control the use of deicing materials (DIM).

The purpose of the work is to select a set of indicators and determine their acceptable level.

Materials and methods. The assessment of the impact of de-icing materials (DIM) was carried out using samples of snow mass and soil selected from twenty reference points located in various areas of the Moscow city. An analysis was performed to characterize the selected samples according to the following indices: the content of Na+, Cl– ions, total salt content determined by the specific electrical conductivity (EC), the total heavy metal contamination (Zc) and the content of adsorbed sodium (SAR). For ecotoxicological assessment, the work used integral research methods — bioassay using a battery of test organisms. Statistical data processing included cluster and regression analysis.

Results. As shown by chemical-analytical and biological research methods, with the use of DIM,a large amount of salts enters the soil surface along with the snow mass. The concentrations of Na+ in the snow mass ranged from 28.3 to 3232.8 mg/L, Cl– from 278.7 to 3965.3 mg/L. In soil samples, the average Na+ content was 1084 mg/kg, while the content in the control sample was 101.5 mg/kg. The maximum EC values for snow samples were 1–5 mS/cm, and for soil samples — 0.420–0.605 mS/cm. The pollution index (Zc) of the soil corresponded to a low level; the snow mass samples fell into the category of moderately polluted. More than 50% of water extracts from the studied soil samples had an adversee impact on the vital (generative) response function of the test organisms Tetrahymena pyriformis.

Limitations. The limitations of the research are that sampling should take place during the period of snow cover and after complete snowmelt, that is, in the winter-spring period. These studies can be recommended for urban areas where the use of DIM, which contain water-soluble salts of alkali and alkaline earth metals, has been practiced for a number of years.

Conclusion. Monitoring the impact of DIM on the soil cover should be carried out by detecting the following maximum permissible values in snow mass samples: EC — 5.0 mS/cm; Na+ — 4000 mg/L Soil samples should be monitored according to the SAR index, which reflects the salts concentration present in the soil. Additional characteristics of the studied samples for the content of undetected pollutants can be carried out using integral biotesting methods.

Compliance with ethical standards. The study does not require the presentation of the conclusion of the biomedical ethics committee or other documents.

Contribution: Voronina L.P., Doneryan L.G. — the concept and design of the study, collection and processing of material, statistical processing, writing text, editing; Sbitnev A.V. — collection and processing of material, writing text, editing; Vodanova M.A. — editing. All authors are responsible for the integrity of all parts of the manuscript and approval of the manuscript final version.

Conflict of interest. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgement. The study had no sponsorship.

Received: July 16, 2024 / Accepted: October 2, 2024 / Published: November 19, 2024