Оценка состояния земель в России на основе концепции нейтрального баланса их деградации

Abstract

The Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) concept is a result of the development of global experience in assessing land degradation over the past 40 years. The concept is worked out to harmonize different national methods for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and targets’ indicator 15.3.1–“proportion of land that is degraded over total land area.” The paper reviews the results of land assessment for Russia using LDN concept approaches, first calculated for individual regions (subjects of the Russian Federation) using the Trends.Earth GIS module. This module uses global databases to interpret three main proxy indicators: land cover dynamics, the dynamics of productivity, the dynamics of soil organic carbon stocks. Using “one out all out” principle, the Trends.Earth calculation for the whole Russia’s territory shows the proportion of 12.3% of degraded lands, which is a very averaged indicator for a country with a high variety of socioeconomic and physical-geographical conditions. The variation in the proportion of degraded lands calculated by this method ranges from about 63–67% in the Rostov and Volgograd oblasts to less than 1% in the Amur, Kaluga and Ivanovo oblasts. Considering the multidirectional trends in land quality change the “LDN index” is proposed for the development of the concept. It means the difference between the share of “improved” and “degraded” lands within a certain territory. The results of calculations should be considered as indicative, they will be specified as the LDN approach is developed and adapted for the territory of Russia.