Role of Forests of the Volga River Basin in the Mitigation of Climate Fluctuations and of Forthcoming global Warming (Predictive Empirical-Statistical Modeling)

Abstract

In this article, the authors propose a predictive landscape-ecological analysis of the forest cover of the Volga basin, which highlights the problem of adsorption of greenhouse gases, which is included in the list of tasks set the Paris Climate Change Agreement (2015). As a result of the study, the authors established the adsorption potential of indigenous and derived boreal and nemoral forests, assessed their ability to mitigate climate change, including reducing anthropogenic warming. A quantitative assessment was also made of the loss of these ecological resources by the forests of the Volga basin since the beginning of intensive forest and land use in it. We have identified contrasting changes in the ecological resources of boreal and nemoral forests during their structural transformation in the course of global warming. We show that the process of thermal-arid transformation of forest ecosystems leads to a general decrease in the positive carbon balance in most groups of forest formations. The verification of the predicted calculations of the carbon balance, carried out by remote and ground measurements in the boreal forests of Central Canada in the first decade of modern warming, gave positive results.