Dynamics of agricultural areas as an indicator of biodiversity monitoring in the Republic of Tyva

Приводится анализ динамики земель, занятых в сельскохозяйственном производстве Республики Тыва (Россия) за последние 40 лет. Обосновывается необходимость изучения структуры сельскохозяйственных угодий по административным районам республики как одного из факторов, оказывающих влияние на природные процессы и компоненты геосистем в эпоху глобального потепления климата. Такой анализ необходим для выбора репрезентативных ключевых участков комплексных исследований уникальных ландшафтов Тывы. The study of climate change is an urgent problem. At the moment, the global trend towards climate warming has been proven, but the factors determining its changes are insufficient. But not all processes are caused by climate change. In addition, the result of climate change may be interrelated with anthropogenic factors. Complex landscape-ecological studies, including the dynamics of nature management (rural, forestry, etc.) and its influence on many natural processes, will help to answer these questions. The aim of the work is to analyze the dynamics of lands occupied in the agricultural sector of the Republic of Tyva over the past forty years and to select representative sites for the organization of comprehensive monitoring studies. The Republic of Tuva, located in the center of Asia, in its natural appearance reflects the features of the influence of the neighboring territories: from the north and north-east – taiga Eastern Siberia, from the south and southeast - desert-steppe regions of Mongolia, from the west – mountain taiga Altai. All these conditions have determined the diversity of natural landscapes and the ecological value of the territory. The article is based on materials from reports of different levels, statistical yearbooks, archival funds, field research by authors, etc. The materials were processed using MS Excel software packages and GIS technologies in the ArcGIS software package. The authors found that the structure of agricultural lands of the Republic of Tyva during the analyzed period underwent tangible changes, which were caused not only by external socio-economic reasons of the end of the 20th century, but also by internal administrative- territorial ones (reduction of the areas of some regions and increase in others, as well as the creation of new ones). It is shown that, overall, the areal structure of agricultural lands changed during the second half of the XX – first half of the XXI century. For example, in 1976 the area of agricultural land in Tuva was 4623.2 thousand hectares, which is almost 2 times more than the modern areas. These transformations were noted not only in individual years throughout the republic, but in individual administrative regions. So, it is shown that in the period from 1980 to the early 90s. Most of the districts (kozhuuns) of the region had agricultural territories that did not exceed 20 %. In just two kozhuuns, the share of lands exceeded 50% of the total area (Ovyursky and Tes- Khemsky). A study in the aspect of periods shows that in 1990 the area of agricultural land had maximum indicators (6812.2 thousand hectares), Then there was a decrease in the area of land of this category and in 2005 it was equal to 1219.9 thousand hectares, and at the beginning of 2020 – 3363.9 thousand hectares. As a result, the authors note that the largest changes in agricultural land occurred in three kozhuuns, namely, their reduction by 1.5–4 times. At the same time, the restoration of natural vegetation was recorded in the place of fallow lands