Structure and mapping of landscapes of the Pripyatsky National Park using geoinformation technologies

Abstract

The article considers new approaches to the study of the structure of natural landscapes, the identification of typical and rare landscapes of Pripyatsky National Park and their mapping using GIS-technologies that allow the creation of digital landscape maps. The relevance of the work is to create the first digital maps for the Pripyatsky National Park, which can be used to expand the network of ecological routes, increase the number of objects of inspection of the territory by tourists, monitoring forests and swamps. The created digital landscape map reflects the hierarchical levels and structure of natural complexes in the rank of genera, species and tracts, as well as the principles of their selection, which correspond to scientific approaches to the classification of landscapes of the Belarusian school of landscape studies. As a result, the main factor of the selection of genera is the genesis, species – the nature of relief, tracts – features of relief and soil-vegetation cover. The mapping of landscapes of specially protected natural areas (SPNA) of the Republic of Belarus using GIS-technologies was first tested on the example of the Berezinsky Biosphere Reserve and three national parks (Narochansky, Braslavskie Ozera, Belovezhskaya Pushcha). The digital landscape map of the Pripyatsky National Park, which illustrates the territorial distribution of 4 genera, 19 types of landscapes and 3 types of tracts, helped to clarify the boundaries of landscape units and served as the basis for identifying typical and rare landscapes, which is especially important for identifying rare landscapes that have preserved their natural appearance and have a special nature conservation value and in need of special protection. A digital map of typical and rare landscapes shows that within the boundaries of the park are widely represented species of lake-swamp and alluvial terraced landscapes, typical for the Polesie region, rare landscapes are confined to the floodplain landscape of the Pripyat River with ridged relief, old lakes, floodplain oak forests and tall grass meadows. In general, the identified typical landscapes of the Pripyatsky National Park are representative of the Polesie landscape province and reflect its regional features, and rare ones are found only in this region and emphasize its individuality. Digital maps made it possible to reveal the complex structure of landscapes, to discover not only typical and rare landscapes, but also unique objects in the rank of a natural boundary, and thereby show a more diverse landscape structure of the park than is reflected in the Landscape map of the Republic of Belarus (2014).