Preservation of steppe landscapes in the structure of agrolandscapes of the Republic of Khakassia

Abstract

The article presents the results of longstanding field studies (2000-2020) of steppe vegetation and demutation processes of fallow lands in the Altai region of the Republic of Khakassia. The aim of the work is to identify and determine the area of steppe landscapes and demutation areas in the structure of the lands of the Altai region. For this, a land use map of the Altai region was created, the areas of land occupied by steppe vegetation and fallow lands at different stages of restoration were calculated, demutational areas susceptible to overgrowing with trees and shrubs were identified. Based on geobotanical researches, cartographic materials, visual interpretation of Sentinel-2 satellite images of the visible L2A range (2018-2020), a GIS-project was created, including a cluster of raster data, thematic vector layers: water bodies, agricultural lands, vegetation, etc. It allows you to visualize information about the state and use of agricultural lands and vegetation in the form of maps of different thematic scope. It was searched out that the part of steppe landscapes in the total area of the Altai region is 32.2%. In the main, in arable sandy steppes that are not zonal for Khakassia have been preserved. True large bunchgrass and meadow steppes have been preserved in separate fragments and represent all stages of anthropogenous fracturing (various pasture modifications of these steppes). In the study area in the structure of agricultural lands 56860 hectares of agricultural lands belongs to abandoned lands at different stages of restoration, and only 20% postagrogenic lands of which are at the IV stage of restoration (compact-tussock or truly cespitous grasses). The process of restoration of steppe vegetation is accompanied by overgrowing with Ulmus pumila L.