Simulation of the vulnerability of the steppe landscape and climate zone of Ukraine to climate changes based on space image data

Abstract

Now, the whole world, including Ukraine, is facing one of the biggest environmental problems, namely, climate change. The steppe landscape-climate zone is one of the territories considered the most sensitive to Ukraine's current and future climate change threats. Studying the vulnerability to climate change of the steppe zone of Ukraine based on data from space surveys requires analysing a large amount of objective data, namely the products of remote sensing data processing. The article presents the results of combining remote sensing, geographic information systems, and multi-criteria decision analysis to identify vulnerable areas to the impact of climate change in the steppe landscape-climatic zone. This information will be used to recommend adaptation systems to modern conditions and reduce the impact of adverse climate changes. The proposed decision-making structure was developed in three stages: 1) collection and processing of available data from space surveys; 2) development of a model of vulnerability to climate change of the steppe landscape-climatic zone of Ukraine based on the method of analysis of hierarchies; 3) construction of the resulting map, which includes degrees of vulnerability to climate changes of the studied territory. Modern cloud processing methods for space survey data provide access to a large number of geo-informational products, including the characteristics of the earth's surface and the spatial distribution of climatic indicators accumulated over a long period. These products allow the processing of these data for large areas to be implemented quickly. This technique allows, based on expert assessments, to assess the combined impact of the most significant characteristics of the earth's surface and regional climate, prioritise their impact on the studied territory's vulnerability to climate changes, and implement its quantitative multi-criteria assessment.