MOSCOW, October 30. /TASS/. The Integrated Ecosystem Status Indicator (IESI), developed by the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, will be used in Norilsk to asses effectiveness of the Sulfur Program, the Norilsk Nickel Company's Vice President for Ecology and Industrial Safety Stanislav Seleznev told TASS.

"We will use the IESI formula in Norilsk, to see how the conditions will improve," he said.

Earlier, the Nature and People Foundation's environmental responsibility expert Alexey Knizhnikov at the Siberian Perspective Sustainable Development Summit suggested using bio indicators - plants and animals - to assess the declining sulfur dioxide emissions in Norilsk.

From 2022, in areas around Norilsk Nickel's industrial assets, specialists have been collecting data on various components of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems: flora, fauna and soils. For animals and plants, those are indicators of species diversity, and indicator groups' abundance. For rivers, lakes and soils, the indicators are the contents of certain chemical elements, and the presence of living organisms. This work continues both in industrial impact zones, as well as at background sites - where ecosystems have been preserved in their original forms, where the background sites indicators are taken for the "normal rates."

The data, collected in the affected areas, are compared against background indicators to obtain information about the ecosystems conditions in areas around Norilsk Nickel's industrial assets and to see possible deviations from the "normal rates." Since organisms differ in responses to anthropogenic impacts, and for more accurate results in calculating the IESI, specialists take into account indicators for a wide range of groups and species. For background territories, the IESI is taken as a unit.

About Sulfur Program

In October, 2023, the Norilsk Nickel Company (Nornickel) launched the first stage of its flagship project - Sulfur Program - at the Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant.

The Sulfur Program's technologies are assumed to capture at least 99% of sulfur dioxide at the main smelting units, where they will be used, and they take into account peculiarities of the Norilsk Industrial District's' ore base, the used pyrometallurgical processes, as well Norilsk's logistical limitations (a lack of external railway, a limited navigation period on the Yenisei River, the inter-navigation period where only air traffic is available, and the Northern Sea Route's logistics). Sulfuric acid from sulfur dioxide will be further neutralized by limestone to produce gypsum.

Norilsk is a polar city in the Krasnoyarsk Region's north. The population is 176,000 people (the region's second most populous city). The Norilsk Nickel Company's Polar Division is the city-forming enterprise. Norilsk produces about 20% of the world's high-grade nickel. Norilsk Nickel is a diversified mining and metallurgical company, the world's largest producer of palladium and high-grade nickel.