Shape of cumulative land use systems' area distribution as a parameter of anthropogenic impact on landscapes

Abstract

Statement of the problem and paper objective. Current challenges address global and regional threats to biotic and landscape diversity and the urgent need for its conservation, restoration and reproduction. They make it necessary to improve the tools for conceptual, information and calculating assessment of human activities impact on the environment. That is why the study of the landscapes anthropization, i.e. the process of their transformation through human activity, and the identification of the effects of this anthropization on the environment remains the most pressing problem of geography and geoecology. Given this, the paper objective was to substantiate, develop and verify new and sufficiently informative analytical tools for modeling anthropogenic impact of the land use and/or land cover (LULC) system on landscapes and/or physic-geographic taxons. Methods and results. The experience shows that the resumptive graphic solutions for the analysis of anthropogenic impact on landscapes can be correctly represented in the form of certain modified graphs of statistics. So, the classified scheme of the LULC system areas' cumulative distribution in landscapes and/or physic-geographic taxons was substantiated and constructed as analytical tool for modeling anthropogenic impact on landscapes / taxons. The scheme is based on the concept that the types of the mentioned distribution in its shape are adequate a certain category and the intensity of anthropogenic impact on landscapes or taxons. Properly the distribution of LULC system areas was typified by the ranges for the parameter of polynomial trends in the cumulative graphs of these areas in landscapes or their aggregations. Under these conditions, the scheme of areas' cumulative distribution operates with ten types of distribution – from excessively convex to excessively concave. These types also reflect different anthropogenic impacts on taxons – from weak to excessively strong. Verification of the scheme calculating LULC system areas' cumulative distribution was realized for the test megaregion, including 30 physic-geographic areas and 130 physic-geographic districts of the five regions in the zones of mixed (coniferous / broad-leaved) and broad-leaved forests and forest-steppe of Ukraine. Relevant digital choropleths concerning anthropogenic impact on these taxons were simulated and analyzed. Scientific novelty and practical significance. Scientific novelty is determined by the reason that the developed scheme and obtained model results are more parametrically diverse than in the existing procedures. This is caused by the fact that the proposed tools are more informative and statistically effective for identification of anthropogenic impact on landscapes and physic-geographic taxons than the average-weighted and other calculating anthropization indexes or schemes for consideration the impact of only dominant LULC systems. The verification of the developed tools for the test megaregion affirmed the general validity of the proposed new methodical approaches. The paper results are applicable for the improvement of procedures, schemes and projects of environmental management for plain terrestrial landscapes and their aggregations in midlatitudes.