Home – Home – Jornals – Geography and Natural Resources 2025 number S6

The article notes that one of the serious environmental problems in the south of Siberia is associated with the widespread processes of soil erosion, causing a decrease in soil fertility and a reduction in the area of arable land. Its solution is possible through the introduction of zonal systems of anti-erosion agriculture based on the knowledge of the mechanisms of erosion processes, their intensity and territorial distribution. The source of such information is soil erosion maps. They assess the scale of the modern development of soil erosion and deflation processes, provide quantitative information on the average annual losses from erosion (t/ha per year). The basic foundation of modern mapping of erosion-hazardous lands are quantitative models of erosion processes. The possibility of using models for the territory under consideration has been verified by data from field experimental studies, which have shown a high correlation coefficient of measured and calculated values. The authors have compiled maps of the distribution of zones with different intensities of rain and melt washout, gully erosion and soil deflation in the main agricultural enclaves of Eastern Siberia. The maps serve as a basis for choosing a land use policy. They can be used to assess the sustainability of landscapes and to solve various environmental problems. Currently, the role of agricultural erosion is increasing as a factor in the redistribution of matter on the earth’s surface and the main supplier of sediments and chemical elements to rivers and reservoirs. Therefore, ecological-erosion maps are supplemented by mapping of litho-catchment basins. Such work is carried out by the V.B. Sochava Institute of Geography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and they have a great future.