Conservation of Soil Cover of the Steppe in Federal Specially Protected Natural Areas

Abstract

The basis of Russia’s natural reserve fund consists of federal state reserves, national parks, and wildlife sanctuaries, the representativeness of which in relation to the diversity of natural complexes, including soils, is the main mechanism for protecting natural diversity. Using the method of geoinformation analysis, the areal and typological representation of the natural diversity of steppe soils in the system of specially protected natural areas (SPNAs) of the country was assessed based on vector maps: Pochvennaya karta Rossii (Soil Map of Russia) on a scale of 1 : 2 500 000 (a combined version of the Pochvennaya karta RSFSR (Soil Map of the RSFSR) and the Pochvennaya karta Kryma (Soil Map of Crimea) and the Karty pochvenno-ekologicheskogo raionirovaniya v Rossiiskoi Federatsii (Map of Soil-Ecological Zoning of the Russian Federation) on a scale of 1 : 8 000 000. The area occupied by steppe soils in Russia is 1 564 000 km² (9.4% of the total soil area of the country), of which 7.4% are soils of steppes (including forest–steppes and true steppes) and 2.0% are soils of dry steppes and semideserts. In protected areas, steppe soils occupy 11 500 km² and are found in 23 nature reserves, 14 national parks, and 13 wildlife sanctuaries. The current areal representativeness of protected steppe areas is very low: less than 0.5% for the group “Soils of the steppes” and about 2% for the group “Soils of dry steppes and semideserts. “Of the 55 steppe soils, units of the legend of the “Soil Map of Russia,” 58% are represented in federal protected areas, while reserves, which account for a fifth of the total area of steppe protected areas, provide 81% of the typological representativeness. Currently, many natural steppe soils in Russia, including the most fertile ones, are not represented in protected areas. The most significant compact array of such soils in terms of area is located in Ciscaucasia. The largest area here is occupied by southern and ordinary mycelial–carbonate chernozems (World reference base for soil resources (2014) – Calcic Сhernozems (Pachic)), their area is about 98 000 km² (7.9% of the soil area of the Russian steppes). There is a real threat of losing the last virgin examples of highly fertile soils typical of Ciscaucasia: southern and ordinary chernozems, dark chestnut, chestnut, light chestnut soils (WRB – Calcic Сhernozems (Pachic), Haplic Kastanozems, Calcic/Gypsic Kastanozems, Luvic Calcisols). Preservation of these soils in the virgin state, at least as samples for comparison with anthropogenically modified analogues, requires an inventory of all areas of their distribution and assignment of a protective status.