The article addresses the dynamics of biological processes in various landscapes within a holistic natural geosystem—a catchment area. The Klyazma river (the fourth order tributary to the Volga) was selected as the object of study. The natural complex of the Klyazma river basin is a combination of different landscapes, each marked by a diverse composition of geomorphological and soil-vegetation structures. The study is based on remote sensing data and the Trends.Earth Land Degradation Monitoring Project (Land Cover Dataset, European Space Agency 2015, 300 m spatial resolution) implemented using the open-source Quantum GIS 2.18. Four landscape provinces and eight site were identified in the studied catchment area according to the geomorphological structure and the soil and vegetation cover. The ecosystem parameters Gross Primary Productivity, Net Primary Productivity, and Ecosystem Respiration were measured in the identified sites. In different landscapes the biological processes, characterizing the organic matter dynamics in the form of plant production and organic matter accumulation, differ in both rate and intensity, and variously respond to the changes in climate parameters and land use. The river basin, as a holistic ecosystem, showed sufficient stability of the dynamic processes. This suggests that holistic natural ecosystems, such as catchment areas, have internal compensatory mechanisms that maintain the development stability over long period of time, while irrational land use remains the main damaging factor.
Aim. On the basis of factual material, an assessment was made of the state of land previously (more than 15 years ago) developed as arable land and "abandoned" to date.Material and Methods. Control plots located in different landscape provinces of the Volga‐Oka interfluve were compared in terms of the state of the vegetation cover, as well as the type of overgrowth.Results. Three types of overgrowing of postagrogenic lands characteristic of the initial and intermediate stages of overgrowing of pre‐climax communities have been identified: overgrowing of fields associated with a change in land use; overgrowing of fields with a nearby forest; and overgrowing of fields without a closely located forest.Conclusion. It was shown that as a result of the overgrowing of agricultural lands, the species diversity of plant communities is sharply reduced, the restoration of which is very problematic in the foreseeable future. While postagrogenic phytocenoses are able to gradually restore their production potential to the level of natural phytocenoses, however, their productivity will occur with a different species composition of herbaceous plants with low biodiversity.
This study was aimed to reveal relationships between the formation of the structures of river systems and to discover the tectonic structural features of the territory. We analyzed the morphometric parameters of river catchment areas of various orders, which comprise the Kama river basin. A digital terrain model in ESRI ArcGis 10.4 geoinformation system was used. Within the identified river basin geosystems, quantitative morphometric characteristics of the terrain were calculated for comparative analysis. Multidimensional statistical analysis methods were used to group the basins with respect to their sets of geometric and morphometric characteristics. A spatial typification technique was developed to distinguish the basin geosystems by their morphometric indicators. This study pioneered in using the results of cluster analysis for identification of seven groups of basins, which reflect the spatial heterogeneity of the ancient tectonic elements and the geomorphological conditions within the entire territory of the Kama river basin. It is established that the types of the river basin geosystems with characteristic morphometric features are related to various ancient tectonic structures, which suggests a genetic relationship of endogenous processes of river channel fracturing and the diversity of geometric parameters of different river basins.
Environmental research addresses ecosystems of various hierarchical levels. One of the ecosystem types is the river basin. The basin approach has been applied in the research. We consider the river basin as a single ecosystem of complex landscape structure. The research objective was to assess the biological processes in various landscapes within a holistic natural geosystem – a catchment area. The Klyazma River Basin (a part of the Volga River of 40 thousand km2 area) was the research object. It is a complex combination of different landscapes, each marked by a diverse composition of geomorphological and soil-vegetation structures. According to the geomorphological structure and soil and vegetation cover, four landscape provinces and eight key sites have been identified in the studied catchment area where the ecosystem parameter have been measured. The study is based on remote sensing data and the Trends. Earth Land Degradation Monitoring. The calculation of productivity indicators (GPP, NPP) in carbon units and the land use structure analysis are based on Modis data. The soil organic carbon pool was determined by the UN FAO’s data, based on Trends. Earth and QGIS 2.18. The two-factor variance analysis ANOVA has been used for the data statistic processing. The cartographic analysis of the land use structure dynamics of the entire Klyazma Basin resulted in revealing the areas where various land transitions from one category to another have been identified. They are basically associated with the agricultural land overgrowth. The forest area increased by 9% during the period from 2001 to 2017. Considerable increase in the waterlogged, wetlands areas was observed in the eastern part of the Basin, in the Volga-Klyazma Province. The landscapes react differently to changes in climatic parameters and land use. Thus, the active revegetation of farmland by forests gives the increased rate of carbon accumulation in the soil. Landscapes covered with grasses and shrubs are more productive those covered with forest. On the other hand, woody biotopes are more stable in their development over time. Statistical analysis using the two-factor variation analysis ANOVA method resulted in demonstrating that phytoproductivity dynamics of the key sites does not depend on their productivity parameters nor on the site landscape structure, but is mainly determined by a time factor. In different landscapes the biological processes, characterising the organic matter dynamics in the form of plant production, organic matter accumulation and others are shown to differ both in rate and intensity and ambiguously respond to changes in climate parameters and land use. The river basin, as a single ecosystem, showed sufficient stability of the dynamic processes. This suggests that holistic natural ecosystems, such as catchment areas, have internal compensatory mechanisms that maintain the development stability for a long time, while unplanned land use remains the main damaging factor.
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