Maps of agrolandscape and ecological zoning of natural and natural-agricultural ecosystems of the Russian Federation

Abstract

Agriculture has a large area of coverage and places the greatest burden on land, soil, water and biological resources in many countries of the world. Agricultural lands occupy huge areas in the world (4.8 billion hectares, or 37% of the land) and in Russia (221.9 million hectares, or 13% of the Russian Federation area). The agriculture best adapted to local conditions is the most beneficial one for people and nature. The main direction of agricultural adaptation is agrolandscape-ecological zoning. In order to provide information support for regionally, landscapeand ecologically differentiated agriculture and rational environmental management, an agrolandscape– ecological zoning of natural and natural-agricultural ecosystems was developed for the first time for all 11 natural-economic regions of Russia, namely, Northern, North-Western, Volga–Vyatka, Central, Central Black Earth, Volga, North Caucasus, Ural, West Siberian, East Siberian, and Far Eastern. The zoning was carried out using comparative geographical and agrolandscape-ecological methods, ecological-landscape and agroecological approaches. The contour and information basis for zoning is the map of Soil–Ecological zoning of the Russian Federation from the Faculty of Soil Science of Lomonosov Moscow State University. Maps of other types of zoning, numerous maps and atlases, statistical data, available literary and stock sources, ground-based and remote data were also used. Our sets of zoning materials included: a map, a map legend, 3 databases (land, forage lands, and negative processes), 2 classifications (forage lands, reindeer pastures, if any), articles, monographs, recommendations, and proposals for production. The maps have been compiled on a 1:2,500,000 scale on a modern, highly informative topographic cartographic basis for the map of Russian Federation. The maps show 6 types of boundaries, including 4 types of agrolandscape-ecological ones (taken from the Soil–Ecological Zoning map): 1) zones, 2) mountainous territories, 3) provinces, 4) districts and 2 types of administrative ones (available on the cartographic basis) of: 1) constituent entities of the Russian Federation, and 2) natural-economic regions.