TRADITIONAL AND MODERN APPROACHES TO DETERMINATION, EVALUATION, AND MONITORING OF SOIL DEGRADATION
Abstract
Measures to protect soils from degradation processes will be of great importance in increasing the efficiency of agricultural lands in the future.In carrying out this task, special attention is paid to the rational use of land resources, identification, assessment, and mapping of such lands to plan and implement measures to protect soils.When planning different methods of soil protection, it is first necessary to identify the areas where measures are required to protect them and to assess the level of risk that the degradation process may occur in these areas.Soil degradation is a process of changing soil formation processes and permanent deterioration of soil properties as a result of human activities, which in extreme cases can lead to the destruction of the biosphere and desertification of areas.The regularity of the formation of degradation processes depends on various indicators found, in particular, on the state of the natural environment in remote sensing materials.Indicators are easily observed components of the physiognomic parts of landscapes -relief, vegetation, hydrographic networks, etc., or a combination of them manifested as the morphological composition of natural-territorial complexes at different levels.More than 1 billion hectares of land on almost all continents around the world have been degraded.The causes and main factors of degradation processes are different.It is known that the combination of several factors leads to degradation, the combined effect of which dramatically worsens the environmental situation.In areas prone to degradation, the physical properties of the soil deteriorate, loss of vegetation, salinization of groundwater, biological productivity decreases sharply, and as a result, the chances of ecosystem regeneration decrease.Soil degradation is a complex and diverse set of processes associated with a decrease in moisture content over large areas and a decrease in the biological productivity of soilplant ecosystems.In many parts of the world, lands bordering desert areas are degraded due to unfavorable conditions, leading to the loss of thousands of hectares of land per year.It also accelerates this process by ruthlessly exploiting large areas through the irrational use of ordinary farming, pastures, and other agricultural lands, planting without crop rotation or leaving the soil unattended.Detection and assessment of soil degradation, development of measures to prevent it is one of the most pressing issues today.Extensive experience has been accumulated in recording, combating, assessing, classifying, and mapping the risk of degradation processes.