Russia
Alexey Sorokin, Ekaterina Yakovleva, Aleksey Bryzzhev, Dmitrii Rukhovich, and Sergey V. Kiselev
The studies of the economics of land degradation are still scarce in Russian Federation. This chapter first discusses land degradation and improvement at national level by examining the global data. As part of this, the study examines the unique pattern observed in Russia, where cropland has significantly decreased by as much as 25% between 1990-2009. We examine the drivers and global implications of such change. We then select a case study district to examine in-detail land degradation and the cost of inaction and benefits of taking action against land degradation. The Azov district of the Saratov region was proposed as the case study from where we collected geo-referenced local mapping and field data. These included three maps of land use on the territory of the district for different years (1990, 2000 and 2010), remote sensing data, a map of inter-farm land management (1:25000) and soil maps in raster (1:10000) and vector (1:50000, 1:300000) form. We made maps of the dynamics of land-use for selected area for three time periods: 1990-2000, 2000-2010, and 1990-2010.Within the model area we examined the causes of land degradation, existing in the Chernozem zone of Russia, such as soil erosion, secondary salinization, soil compaction etc. Next we estimated the contribution of each of them in the loss of income. We compared the losses due to degradation with the investment in the prevention of land degradation, and compared the cost and benefits of action and the cost of inaction. We discussed the peculiarities of the application of the existing methodology of land degradation assessment in the Chernozem region due to the natural conditions, land tenure traditions, and available agricultural technology.
