Surfactants have a widespread occurrence, not only as household detergents, but also in their application in industry and medicine. There are numerous bioassays for assessing surfactant toxicity, but investigations of their impact on biological systems at the molecular level are still needed. In this paper, luminous marine bacteria and their coupled NAD(P)H:FMN-oxidoreductase + luciferase (Red + Luc) enzyme system was applied to examine the effects of different types of surfactants, including cationic cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), non-ionic polyoxyethylene 20 sorbitan monooleate (Tween 80) and anionic sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), and to assess whether the Red + Luc enzyme system can be used as a more sensitive indicator of toxicity. It was shown that the greatest inhibitory effect of the surfactants on the activity of luminous bacteria and the Red + Luc enzyme system was in the presence of SLS samples. The calculated IC₅₀ and EC₅₀ values of SLS were 10⁻⁵ M and 10⁻² M for the enzymatic and cellular assay systems, respectively. The results highlight the benefits of using the enzymatic assay system in ecotoxicology as a tool for revealing surfactant effects on intracellular proteins if the cellular membrane is damaged under a long-term exposure period in the presence of the surfactants. For this purpose, the bioluminescent enzyme-inhibition-based assay could be used as an advanced research tool for the evaluation of surfactant toxicity at the molecular level of living organisms due to its technical simplicity and rapid response time.

A bioluminescent-enzyme-inhibition-based assay was applied to predict the potential toxicity of the full profile of the following soil samples: agricultural grassland, 10-year fallow land (treated with remediation processes for 10 years) and uncontaminated (virgin) land. This assay specifically detects the influence of aqueous soil extracts from soils on the activity of a coupled enzyme system of luminescent bacteria: NAD(P)H:FMN-oxidoreductase + luciferase (Red + Luc). It was shown that the inhibitory effect of the full-profile soil samples on the Red + Luc system decreased with depth for the 10-year fallow-land and virgin-land samples, which correlated with a decrease in the humic organic matter content in the soils. The inhibitory effect of the agricultural grassland on the Red + Luc enzyme system activity was more complex and involved the presence of the humic organic matter content, as well as the presence of pollutants in the whole-soil profile. However, if the interfering effect of humic organic substances on the Red + Luc system’s activity is taken into account during full-profile soil toxicity assessments, it might help to detect pollutant mobility and its leaching into the subsoil layer. Thus, this bioluminescent method, due to the technical simplicity, rapid response time and high sensitivity, has the potential to be developed as a biological part of the inhibition-based assay and/or biosensors for the preventive tracing of potential full-profile soil contamination.

This work is dedicated to developing enzyme biosensor software to solve problems regarding soil pollution analysis. An algorithm and specialised software have been developed which stores, analyses and visualises data using JavaScript programming language. The developed software is based on matching data of 51 non-commercial standard soil samples and their inhibitory effects on three enzyme systems of varying complexity. This approach is able to identify the influence of chemical properties soil samples, without toxic agents, on enzyme biosensors. Such software may find wide use in environmental monitoring.

Chemical and biological approaches are widely applied to assess petroleum hydrocarbon contamination in soils; however, their results are often difficult to compare due to the use of fundamentally different extraction media. Chemical analytical methods typically rely on non-polar organic solvents, whereas biological toxicity assessments are based on aqueous soil extracts, reflecting water-soluble fractions of contaminants. This methodological discrepancy complicates the integrated evaluation of soil contamination and the assessment of remediation effectiveness. This study proposes an FTIR-based approach for assessing petroleum hydrocarbon contamination in sandy podzolic soil based on extraction with aqueous dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). The proposed method aims to reduce the methodological gap between classical chemical monitoring and aqueous-based biological assessment frameworks. The extraction performance of distilled water and aqueous DMSO solutions with different concentrations was evaluated using model soil samples artificially contaminated with crude oil. Crude oil was used as a multicomponent contaminant, whereas “petroleum hydrocarbons” refers to the operationally defined hydrocarbon fraction extracted from the soil–oil system and detected by FTIR in the C–H stretching region. Hydrocarbon extraction efficiency was assessed based on characteristic C–H stretching absorption bands in the 2800–3100 cm⁻¹ infrared region. Distilled water exhibited limited extraction capacity and rapidly reached saturation, resulting in weak and concentration-independent absorption responses. In contrast, aqueous DMSO increased the apparent solubility of hydrocarbons and yielded reproducible, concentration-dependent spectral responses. A 75% (v/v) aqueous DMSO solution was selected as a practical compromise extraction medium, increasing analytical sensitivity while remaining more compatible with aqueous conditions than conventional non-polar organic solvents. The proposed method provides a lower-hazard and methodologically coherent extraction approach for FTIR-based chemical monitoring of petroleum-contaminated soils and may facilitate improved comparability between chemical measurements and aqueous-based biological assessment approaches in integrated soil contamination and remediation studies.

This article examines oil-spill-related environmental damage in the Russian North as an eco-social risk that affects ecosystems, Indigenous communities, traditional nature management, and territorial welfare. This paper develops a qualitative conceptual analysis based on interdisciplinary document analysis, literature-based synthesis, and illustrative case contextualization. It contributes to debates on eco-social policy and sustainable welfare by arguing that environmental remediation and monetary compensation often remain insufficient when ecological harm disrupts land-based livelihoods, food autonomy, cultural ecosystem services, and Indigenous participation. This article proposes the concept of traditional nature management as a form of territorial welfare: a place-based welfare arrangement that supports food security, mobility, intergenerational knowledge transfer, cultural continuity, and community autonomy. The analysis identifies several interconnected transformation channels through which oil spills affect Indigenous communities: resource degradation, disruption of mobility routes, weakening of traditional food systems, erosion of cultural ecosystem services, compensation conflicts, and marginalization of Indigenous and local knowledge. The synthesis further shows that the most important assessment gaps arise where legally recognized ecological damage is disconnected from fishery and food-system losses, seasonal mobility, cultural ecosystem services, and Indigenous participation. In the context of Russian legal policy, existing mechanisms recognize traditional nature use and compensation for damage to Indigenous habitat and livelihoods, but non-market territorial-welfare losses remain only partially operationalized in environmental damage assessment. The paper argues that these consequences reveal an institutional missing link between environmental liability, social protection, Indigenous rights, and corporate responsibility. To address this gap, this article proposes an eco-social assessment framework that combines economic valuation with participatory mapping, cultural ecosystem service assessment, Indigenous and local knowledge, long-term welfare-oriented compensation, and community-based monitoring. The framework is intended as a conceptual and policy-oriented instrument rather than an empirical valuation model; the 2020 Norilsk diesel spill is used solely as an illustrative vignette to demonstrate the institutional disconnect between legally recognized environmental damage and broader welfare-related losses. The findings are relevant for eco-social policy debates because they show how extractive-sector risks reshape welfare arrangements in peripheral regions and create new entanglements between state responsibility, corporate welfare, and community resilience in the context of conflicting ecological transitions. More broadly, this study demonstrates that sustainable recovery in northern resource-dependent territories requires the integration of ecological restoration, legally grounded compensation, long-term welfare monitoring, and meaningful Indigenous participation. Comparative Russian evidence from the Nenets and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrugs, Sakhalin, and Yakutia further indicates that compensation and benefit-sharing arrangements vary substantially with regard to procedural inclusion and transparency. The framework does not replace existing Russian statutory loss-calculation procedures; its added value is to connect them with community-defined territorial relationships, participatory mapping, co-validation of locally relevant indicators and repeated assessment of welfare recovery.