Relationships between heavy metal migration in soils and landslide dynamics under conditions of modern climate change: A case study of Lake Baikal, Olkhon Island

The problem of studying landslide processes has attracted worldwide attention due to both the increase in human activities. New data for environmental monitoring of the Lake Baikal coast were obtained. The main goal aims to establish relationships between modern climate changes and the landslide process dynamics, as expressed in the assessment of Hg, Pb, Cd contamination levels, the identification of their possible sources and interelemental relationships, as well as the evaluation of some natural factors. Some improvements to previously developed analytical and physical-mechanical techniques have been made, which have enabled to improve some statistical characteristics for the analytical methods, as well as to achieve uniform moisture distribution throughout the tested sample to the specified values. The coastal zone was classified as moderately to heavily contaminated by Hg (2.97) and Pb (2.08) using the C_f method. The EF and I_geo methods indicated that a significant amount of Hg and Pb was probably from anthropogenic sources. The PCA indicated a strong inverse relationship between Hg and Cd (-0.833) in the landslide zone (L3 site) and a perfect positive relationship in the coastal zone (0.992) that suggests different sources and pathways. A change in soil temperature to positive values (from 0.6 to 1.1 °C) leads to an increase in the depth of thawing, which results in a lowering of the permafrost roof. This proves that permafrost rocks influence landslide activation, which in turn leads to migration of heavy metals in the landslide. These conclusions are fully consistent with the main goal of the study and the proposed hypotheses. These findings can help the authorities of the National Parks and other individuals in charge of making decisions regulate the anthropogenic load on the ecosystem of Olkhon Island and generally the Baikal region.