Abstract

Desertification still remains an unsolved environmental problem that affects 1.5 billion people and 25% of the arid lands in the world and that represents a critical threat to the biodiversity, socioeconomic development, and sustainability of arid regions. At the local scale, desertification often results from unsustainable land management. Agricultural lands subjected to this process are intensively used for mass production of food. Despite the importance of this environmental problem, there is still no consensus concerning an accurate quantitative estimation of the desertification process in a regional scale. The lack of a clear definition and common standard methods for determination of the causes and consequences of this destructive process represents a significant obstacle to the development of appropriate strategies to control desertification. Using the method of compensatory costs and a semi-desert zone as an example, the environmental damage that occurs due to land degradation and is manifested via the loss of fertility (loss of organic and soil nutrients), has been evaluated. Such damage is determined not least because of a long-term climatic trend indicating increased aridity of the studied region. Based on the recent data, the area of agricultural lands in the south of European Russia characterized by a predominance of light chestnut soils and subjected to desertification has been determined. The regional costs for fertilizers required to compensate for the lost fertility of these natural resources have been calculated, as well as the volume of losses of their annual productivity. The resulting estimates can be used by policy makers as an important quantitative tool for determining the scale and the costs of desertification in terms of justifying the corresponding reduction of a productive potential of arid lands.

中文翻译：

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俄罗斯欧洲南部干旱地区荒漠化环境损害评估

摘要

荒漠化仍然是一个尚未解决的环境问题，影响着世界上 15 亿人和 25% 的干旱土地，对干旱地区的生物多样性、社会经济发展和可持续性构成严重威胁。在局部范围内，荒漠化往往是不可持续的土地管理造成的。经过这一过程的农田被大量用于食品的大规模生产。尽管这一环境问题很重要，但对于区域范围内荒漠化过程的准确定量估计仍未达成共识。缺乏明确的定义和共同的标准方法来确定这一破坏性过程的原因和后果，是制定适当的荒漠化控制战略的重大障碍。以补偿成本法和半沙漠地带为例，评估了因土地退化而导致的环境破坏，表现为肥力损失（有机和土壤养分的损失）。这种损害的确定不仅是因为长期的气候趋势表明研究区域干旱加剧。根据最近的数据，确定了俄罗斯欧洲南部以浅栗色土壤为主并遭受荒漠化的农业用地面积。计算了补偿这些自然资源肥力损失所需的化肥的区域成本，以及它们年生产力的损失量。由此产生的估计数可被决策者用作重要的量化工具，用于确定荒漠化的规模和成本，从而证明干旱土地生产潜力的相应减少是合理的。