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Climatic and post-agrarian vectors of transformation of forested areas in old-developed regions of European Russia

V.V. Elsakov, T.A. Mylnikova, A.Yu. Borovlev, L.M. Baskin, V.M. Shchanov

Section: Ecology and climate change

The article analyses changes in the vegetation cover in several districts of the Kostroma Volga region within 1985–2023 using multi-temporal Landsat and MODIS satellite data. Two thematic maps of vegetation cover and land surface (M 1 : 100 000) were prepared based on Landsat images (for 08.08.1985 and 10.08.2018). The maps were used to identify changes in dominant classes of the region. Case study in some districts show that the share of coniferous forest communities increased from 32.6 to 43.8%. The share of deciduous communities remained unchanged (39.7–39.9%). The proportion of ‘indigenous’ forests (classified as one class in 1985 and 2018) was 25.9% for coniferous forests and 26.2% for deciduous forests. Comparison of detailed resolution images of Corona KH-2 (19.08.1973) and ESRI Imagery (29.04.2023) shows that areas of changes are associated with overgrowing fallow lands and agricultural territories. The most active overgrowth can be observed at the edges of plots bordering with forest phytocenoses. The canopy density indices calculated from Landsat winter and early spring images reflect changes in the forest communities most fully. After a conflagration in 1972 forest communities with a canopy density of up to 80–90% were restored by 2015. Undisturbed coniferous native forests are characterized by a gradual decrease (about 0.2% per year) in canopy density values; this fact can be used as an indicator of intact forests. Analysis of changes in the spectral EVI (Enhanced Vegetation Index) shows that most of the forest community classes remain stable. However, the considerable length of the observation period (24 years) leveled out the calculated linear trend for many sites, even with large changes.

Keywords: forest stands, satellite research methods, global transformations of boreal ecosystems

Article published in number 3 for 2025
DOI: 10.25750/1995-4301-2025-3-188-194

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