ИСТИНА

The agriculture in Russia is considered as the major LUCC driver although agricultural lands occupy 13% of country territory. The reform in Russian land use system has begun about twenty years ago and the land codes were accepted to regulate land ownership and usage. The land resources’ management still has a number of problems and land degradation processes are not considered. Integrated agrolandscape methodology was used for LUCC mapping and assessment. Scaling of LUCC investigations is very important because it defines the degree of information details, resolution of remote sensing data and methodology of classification and mapping. The scale-dependent land cover applications have been conducted at macroregional for the whole country, regional and local levels using remote sensing data, traditional maps and in-field observations. The model of land cover degree of transformation was elaborated on the base of taking into account the changes in vegetation altered by agricultural impact. The agrolandscape methodology helps to provide understandable presentation of geographical distribution of areas with different LUCC trends and degree of land cover transformation, to identify territories with similar land cover status in order to replicate advanced LUCC management experience and to reveal the areas with the most heavily transformed lands.