ANTHROPOGENIC CENTERS AS INDICATORS OF THE ECOLOGICAL STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

At the beginning of the XXI century. the landscape and ecologically destabilized environment of any region, including Ukraine, is characterized by abnormally rapid changes in the structural organization of geocomponents and landscape complexes and the relationships between them. As a result, new phenomena arise in the reaction of these natural structures to external, mainly anthropogenic, influences, which lead to unpredictable trends in the development of the environment. In such conditions, various anthropogenic centers are actively developing, among which the role and importance of recreational ones is also increasing. As previous studies show, anthropogenic centers are the most real indicators of the current ecological state of the environment. Knowledge of the processes and phenomena that develop in recreational centers and geoecotones is relevant and promising. On the one hand, they reveal the causes and mechanisms of existing trends of recreational transformations at the local level, and on the other, taking into account their indicator value, they open the way to managing the state of recreational landscapes and, partially, the environment in general In the conditions of today's unstable environment, anthropogenic centers and processes in them are gaining widespread development, as a manifestation of new landscape, energy, substance and informational connections. The goal is to investigate the formation process and substantiate the significance of anthropogenic centers as indicators of environmental development. In the research process, a constructive landscape approach, the principles of complexity and natural-anthropogenic coexistence were applied; methods - retrospective, natural analogies, modeling, GIS technologies. By the anthropogenic center we understand the territory within which, under the influence of human activity, processes develop that lead to a change in the structural organization of geocomponents and landscape complexes. It is shown that the diversity of anthropogenic centers and the processes that develop in them depend not only on the type of economic activity, but also on the mosaic of landscape complexes on the basis of which anthropogenic centers are formed. On the example of the model region - Middle Pobuzhzhia, the process of formation and structure of recreational centers - recreational centers in the coastal zone of the South Bug River and residential centers in forest landscapes were studied. Taking into account the indicator value of processes developing in anthropogenic centers, the possibilities of using these peculiar landscape structures in the development of regional projects of rational nature management are considered. It is noted that in the future it is necessary to intensify the research of anthropogenic centers and their processes, center boundaries and paradynamic relationships with the environment. Keywords: anthropogenic landscape, anthropogenic center, processes, indicators, structure, environment, rational nature management.