Elena M. Klimina’s research while affiliated with Federal Scientific Center of the East Asia Terrestrial Biodiversity FEB RAS and other places

The need to preserve natural systems is determined by the adaptive demand for ecosystem services in a worsening geo-ecological situation. These services are provided by natural systems preserved in a natural or close to natural state. The quality of services depends on the diversity of the environment, including the landscape diversity (LD). The study aims to develop principles the natural resources conservation strategy relies on in developing the regional environmental policy (REP). The article shows that some of the principles are based on the landscape approach, and some of them - on the conditions and requirements for the application of parameters and criteria for assessing human resource management. The principles were considered using the example of Northern Sikhote-Alin in Khabarovsk region. The landscape-ecological zoning was based on the landscape approach. Geosystems of high regional environment-forming significance were identified to adjust the goals and objectives of strategic territory planning. It is more appropriate to reflect the effectiveness of measures intended to preserve human resources in regional program-target documents, tracking spatial development indicators recorded in the regional economic policy of a territory.

A landscape and ecological zoning is carried out for the preservation of geosystems of high ecological value and for substantiating of their inclusion in ecological frameworks of territories of a different rank. This type of zoning is regarded as a combination of territorialy interconnected groups of geosystems in terms of the set of physical-geographical factors, and structural and functional features. For the Vaninskii and Sovetsko-Gavanskii municipal districts of Khabarovsk krai we identified geosystems of high ecological value at the regional level. The specially protected areas now make up a mere 26.8% of their total area, and this is inadequate to ensure their conservation. It is therefore worthwhile to include in the recommended ecological framework of municipal districts this category of geosystems with the necessary regulations of the modalities of nature management. As a special element of the ecological framework of the territory, the area of the conventionally unchanged and slightly modified geosystems with ecological functions of regional significance will additionally make up 26.3% (taking into consideration their inclusion in a number of other elements of the framework). As a result, the total proportion of lands in the ecological framework of the districts will be increased to 58.6% of their area, which corresponds to the optimal indicators of rational nature management in the subzone of the middle and southern taiga.Keywordslandscape and ecological zoningecological framework of the territoryenvironment-forming functionsVaninskii and Sovetsko-Gavanskii municipal districtsecologically significant landscapes

Pacific Russia is the eastern part of Russia, washed by the Pacific Ocean, occupying a third of its space. Region`s specificity includes allocating several historical and demographic waves of resettlement from the middle of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty-first centuries, the periodic implementation of the state resettlement policy for the colonization of the country's outskirts. The remoteness of the territory contributed to the predominance in the Russian Far East’s development, the need to solve primarily geopolitical problems (border protection) and using natural resources (soil, agro-climatic, mineral, forest, fish, etc.). The Amur Region joined Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century was not a territory with unchanged landscapes by human economic activity. With the new population, the human pressure on natural landscapes intensified. Ecological problems such as wildfires, reduction of native forest vegetation with loss of biodiversity, long-term transformation of local geosystems in the areas of loose gold mining are inherited and are manifested in the region at all stages of its development. At all stages of the Pacific Russia development, the development of resource-extracting industries was based on maximum using of natural resources with lower prices, simple production technologies, and ignoring environmental requirements. Abandoning it in favor of the “green growth” model is complicated by the predominance of regional exports of raw materials and the resource interest of the Asia-Pacific region countries. Nowadays, the region is characterized by a “raw resource” model of development. Modern development strategies of Pacific Russia do not transform radically strategic goals towards reducing environmental pressures and threats. Hence, the practical implementation of spatial planning, based on the territory’s adaptive-landscape organization, is relevant.KeywordsPacific RussiaThe Russian Far EastSettlementRegionPopulation dynamicsRegional developmentLand useNature managementLandscapeAdaptive-landscape organizationLandscape planningGreen economy

Research into pyrogenic carbon emissions in the temperate belt of the Russian Federation has traditionally focused on the impact of forest fires. Nevertheless, ecosystems in which wildfires also make a significant contribution to anthropogenic CO 2 emissions are poorly studied. We evaluated the carbon emissions of fires in the non-forest ecosystems of the Middle Amur Lowland, in the Khabarovsk Territory of the Russian Federation. Our study is based on long-term Earth remote sensing data of medium spatial resolution (Landsat 5, 7, and 8) and expeditionary studies (2018–2021). The assessment of carbon directly emitted from wildfires in meadow and meadow–mire temperate ecosystems in the Middle Amur lowland shows that specific emissions from such ecosystems vary, from 1.09 t/ha in dwarf shrub–sphagnum and sphagnum–ledum and sedge–reed fens to 6.01 t/ha in reed–forb, forb, reed, and sedge meadows. Meanwhile, carbon emissions specifically from fires in meadow and meadow–mire ecosystems are less significant—often an order of magnitude less than carbon emissions from forest fires (which reach 37 tC/ha). However, due to their high frequency and the large areas of land burned annually, the total carbon emissions from such fires are comparable to annual emissions from fires in forested areas. The results obtained show that the inadequacy of the methods used in the automatic mapping of burns leads to a significant underestimation of the area of grassland fires and carbon emissions from non-forest fires.

In the paper, the authors represent the stages of the Khabarovsk Territory landscape -ecological zoning. They propose the main categories of landscapes according to their ecological value, on the example of the Khabarovsk Territory municipal districts. Landscape- ecological zoning is of great importance for planning the ecological policy of municipal districts.

The process of landscape-ecological zoning of a large natural object makes it possible to represent spatial combinations of geosystems that perform the most important ecological functions. To preserve them at the level of municipal district government, it is necessary to identify ecologically significant landscapes that can be optimally used in the economy and at the same time being part of the regional system for preserving the natural environment. This is a case study of two municipal districts of Khabarovsk Territory – Vanino and Sovetskaya Gavan, their place in the landscape-ecological zoning of the Northern Sikhote-Alin, the dynamics of spatio-temporal changes in the categories of regional landscape-ecological zoning within these districts have been considered.

The environmental strategy for regional development is implemented through regional environmental programs. Their list of indicators that track the effectiveness of planned tasks shows that the most important regional aspects are not always properly reflected. The specificity of spatial and temporal trends in the development of regions, the peculiarities of territorial changes in geosystems, and the dynamics of the ratio of disturbed and undisturbed territories are of particular importance in highlighting the tasks in the context of the application of particular indicators. In the context of increased economic activity in the Russian Far East, facilitated by the policy of improving priority social and economic development areas, the regions identify their own tasks for sustainable development. From the perspective of the geographical approach, the content of the concept of landscape diversity, contained in the environmental program of Khabarovsk Territory to reflect spatial changes, is briefly presented. Landscapes as integral systems are considered from the point of view of their positions in the system of taxa of the regional hierarchy. The significance of “landscape diversity conservation” criterion for solving the same problem as a priority for this territory has been shown. The necessity of its application in the region has been considered due to the concentration of natural complexes of a high hierarchical rank, their significant share within the region, the uniqueness and at the same time a high degree of landscape vulnerability to anthropogenic impact due to increased economic activity, the imperfection of the PA network etc.

The results of a social survey of the Khabarovsk Territory rural residents directed to the assessment of the environmental situation in their settlements, interaction of the local population with the environment and threats to fishery.

The system for monitoring the environmental state of Protected Areas should be based on landscape (geosystem) differentiation of an area represented by a number of landscape (geosystem) maps. Such a map shows combinations of interacting components and spatial elements of the natural environment as a single set. However, the development of such a cartographic basis for many Protected Areas in the Russian Far East and Siberia is a very labour-consuming process and it requires large investments due to a lack of knowledge and inaccessibility of such areas. The creation of a landscape map over relatively short time and maximally objectively is possible using methods for interpretation of aerial photos made by unmanned aerial vehicles (DJI Phantom 4) in combination with the Earth remote sensing data with a medium spatial resolution (Sentinel-2), field data and available literature sources. The Bolonsky State Nature Reserve (Khabarovsky Krai, Russia) was selected for this research. This area has an important international status. So, Lake Bolon and the mouths of the Selgon and Simmi rivers is Wetlands of International Importance; Lake Bolon is a Key Bird Area. The study of this area is difficult due to its location within the highly flooded and waterlogged northeastern part of the Middle Amur Lowland. During field studies in 2017–2018, we first studied the landscape structure of the Bolonsky State Nature Reserve. We created maps of relief types, vegetation classes and landscapes at the 1:100 000 scale. In addition, four key sites (scale of 1:5000) have been justified and described in detail as a «milestone» of spatio-temporal changes in wetland geosystems for long-term monitoring. Within the lowland aggraded plain, we have identified three subclasses of aggraded plains of alluvial, lacustrine and alluvial-lacustrine genesis with different combinations of meso- and microrelief. For 12 types of plant communities represented in the Bolonsky State Nature Reserve, their proportion was identified in the landscape structure of the Protected Area. There were larch and mixed larch-small-leaved forests, deciduous forests, small-leaved forests, forest-meadow, forest-wetland and floodplain complexes. For the first time, the paper describes in detail the plant associations of the mire and meadow-mire ecosystems occupying 80% of the area of the Bolonsky State Nature Reserve. On four key routes, a detailed descriptions of mire facies have been conducted using field research data and information from air photographic surveys using unmanned aerial vehicles. These data allowed us to obtain information about functioning of the ecosystems in the Bolonsky State Nature Reserve. The final map presented two types of one landscape class, which include 23 landtypes of the four terrene types. We showed that besides of natural factors, the geosystems of the Protected Area are affected significantly by wildfires having predominantly an anthropogenic origin. The data of Earth remote sensing obtained in 1996–2018 confirm the considerable effect of the wildfire influence on the landscapes of the Protected Area. At the same time, the obtained data indicate that post-fire successions have a high intensity being tended to restore the original status of geosystems. The Bolonsky State Nature Reserve has been affected by wildfires during more than 80 year. However, there are currently no data on the initial state of geosystems in the Protected Area. The comparison of the obtained results and data on the wetland development in the Middle Amur Lowland allowed us to consider the geosystems of this area as a unique «milestone» to study the wetland-developing processes in the south of the Far East.