EVALUATION OF EFFICIENCY OF LAND RECLAMATION IN RUSSIA

Abstract

According to the natural and climatic conditions, Russia is located in a zone of risky agriculture: there is a precipitate deficit on 80% of arable land, and excessive over moistening on 10% of arable land. This is also complicated by climate aridization. In drought years it is practically impossible to implement intensive agrotechnologies and adaptive-landscape farming systems without the use of land reclamation. Currently, in Russia, the total area of irrigated lands is 4.27 million hectares and 4.8 million hectares of drained lands. The average productivity of irrigated land is 2.9 tonnes of grain units/ha. In the case of land reclamation, it is possible to increase the productive potential by 3-4 times. The methodology of increasing the productive potential of agricultural lands by irrigation and drainage reclamation based on the energy evaluation of land reclamation activity is proposed. The energy assessment includes the calculation of the bioclimatic potential, the energy assessment of the state of the soil and the vegetation cover. For the energy estimation of land reclamation, a new indicator is proposed a turbulent energy output, the difference between the radiation balance, the energy of soil formation, and the energy accumulated in soil humus and crop production. This makes it possible to predict the productive potential of agricultural land, depending on the amount of energy invested in land reclamation. The proposed approach makes it possible to move from a real evaluation to a unified energy estimate. The calculations of productivity according to the developed method for various natural zones of the European part of Russia are performed. Chernozems showed the greatest productive potential. It reaches 7.7 tonnes of grain units/ha, and in case of irrigation it can increase up to 10-12 tonnes/ha; the productivity of sod podzol and gray forest soils under natural conditions does not exceed 1.3-2.0 tonnes of grain units/ha, while irrigation productivity will increase to 6-8 tonnes of grain units/ha. Irrigation in the semi-desert and desert zones of the European part of Russia allows increasing their productivity up to 5 times. The proposed method allows selecting the most favorable zoning soils for the reclamation, justifying the crops that ensure the maximum yield in these soil and climatic conditions. The article shows that food security will be ensured during the development of land reclamation in soil and climatic conditions of excessive and insufficient moisture.