The response of salt-affected hydromorphic soils of the Nero Lake basin to the recent climate change within the Upper Volga Region, Russia

Abstract

In the last decades, global warming has induced new trends in the dynamic development of the temperature and water regimes of soils. The main idea of the study was the search for soil identifiers of recent, regionally-specific climate changes occurring in the Volga River basin. Questions that were raised in the study: does recent climate changes find a response in soil properties of hydromorphic (waterlogged) soils of the southern taiga (1), what are the features of evolutionary trends related to ground water salinization in humid climate, as compared to other climate areas (2). This article describes climate-induced changes in properties of saline hydromorphic soils of the Nero Lake depression over the last 30–40 years. Our study focuses on changes in soil pH and contents of organic carbon, calcium carbonate and soluble salts. A comparative analysis of soil analytical data identified the following trends of soil development: desalinization, decreasing contents of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen, but increasing contents of hydrogenic calcium carbonate. Ecological factors of a regional scale which act on a specific territory correct the direction of global climate-induced soil tendencies in comparison to other saline continental depressions. At the same time the data obtained and identified tendencies largely confirm the prognosis for a global warming scenario alongside increasing humidity. Further research into unidirectional trends of soil development based on analyzing a large volume of data can allow for mitigation of influences of changing land use and a more precise detection of climate-induced processes of soil evolution.