Soil cover in the southern forest-steppe of the Central Russian Upland against the background of centennial climate fluctuations

• Published in: Eurasian soil science Vol. 49; no. 7; pp. 721 - 729
• Main Authors: Smirnova, L. G., Kukharuk, N. S., Chendev, Yu. G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Moscow Pleiades Publishing 01.07.2016; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Air temperature; algorithms; Analysis; atmospheric precipitation; Chernozems; Climate; Climate change; Climatic conditions; climatic factors; climatic zones; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Fluctuations; Forest soils; Genesis and Geography of Soils; Geographic information systems; Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences; Global temperature changes; highlands; soil map; Soil surveys; Soils; Steppes; Russia; vector maps; GIS analysis; climate fluctuations; Central Russian Upland; forest-steppe; soil cover; chernozems
• ISSN: 1064-2293; 1556-195X
• DOI: 10.1134/S1064229316070103

Special approaches and algorithms for studying the response of zonal soils and the soil cover of the forest-steppe zone to climate fluctuations were developed on the basis of data of repeated soil surveys. They made it possible to analyze the particular transformations of the soil cover as indicators of short-term climate fluctuations in the southern forest-steppe of the Central Russian Upland. Vector soil maps and related databases on soil polygons were developed using GIS technologies. Changes in the climatic conditions between two rounds of large-scale soil surveys in 1971 and 1991 reflecting the so-called Brückner cycles were identified. A characteristic feature of climate change during that period was the rise in the mean annual air temperature by 0.2°C and an increase in the mean annual precipitation by 83 mm. In response to this change, the area of leached chernozems (Luvic Chernozems) on the interfluves somewhat increased, whereas the area of typical chernozems (Haplic Chernozems) decreased.