Scientific basis of natural and agricultural zoning of the territory of Ukraine in modern conditions

Abstract

Theoretical and methodological approaches to the natural-agricultural zoning of the territory of Ukraine in modern conditions to ensure ecologically balanced, economically efficient and socially oriented use of agricultural land have been highlighted in the article. They are due to large-scale challenges: global warming, which requires changes and clarification of zonal boundaries at the state level (natural and agricultural zones, provinces and districts); aggressive Russian-Ukrainian war, which causes a number of mechanical, physical and chemical negative effects on the soil cover. In particular, where hostilities took place and are taking place (Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions); viral contamination of agricultural plants and soils as a result of violation of crop rotation as an important phytosanitary means of protecting plants and soil from viral infections. According to virologists, the man-made load on the natural environment today and in the near future will increase rather than decrease, and more and more new, including genetically modified, cultivated plants will enter the agrocenoses. The problems of ecological balance in agrocenosis will become more and more important, and the issue of the spread of phytovirus infections and their harmfulness in the future may be considered one of the most acute. The specified challenges determine the need to make significant changes, especially in the limits of the natural-agricultural zoning of the territory of the state, as well as the corresponding taxonomic units (natural-agricultural district — as an area of the territory, within which there is a leveled dependence of crop production, mainly agriculture, on climatic conditions and soil cover of agricultural land, in particular arable land. Microdistrict differences of these factors must be significant). These changes should be made on the basis of a continuous large-scale soil survey.