Map of anthropogenic soil disturbance in Russia

Abstract

Soils play an important role in maintaining the sustainability of the biosphere, as well as providing food, clothing and the basis for human life on Earth. In the process of irrational land use, soils are often degraded and sometimes completely destroyed. But, inventory of destroyed soils on a systematic basis is still not conducted in any country of the world. In Russia, traditional soil maps do not reflect the destroyed soils either. We have made an attempt to create the first map of the country, which shows soils destroyed as a result of directed anthropogenic impact. The map shows areas where soil cover was destroyed as a result of construction of buildings, structures, roads and railroads, quarries and embankments during mining. The crowdsourcing database OpenStreetMap was used as the main source of information, as well as the results of visual interpretation of disturbed soils using GoogleEarthTM satellite data. The data on disturbed soils were aggregated to soil-geographical sections of the Unified State Register of Soil Resources of Russia (scale 1 : 2500000) (UGRSR). The map is presented in GIS format (shapefile). The map contains information on the area and share of disturbed soils, as well as the type of impact that resulted in disturbance.