Differentiation of land cover degradation in Ukraine and Latvia

Abstract

Transformation of land cover is one of the global ecological problems. It causes fall of land resources productivity and loss of biodiversity of the territory. Important tasks of the ecological policy of Ukraine and Latvia include cease of the processes of land degradation and support for rational land use. However, in these countries differentiation of land cover degradation is not sufficiently studied. Particularly, in Ukraine great attention is paid to degradation of the land cover of agricultural land, while in Latvia there are no approved criteria for classification of land degradation processes. Thus, the goal of the research is to improve the methodical approaches to determination of the degradation factor of such types of land cover as water, agricultural land and forests. Differentiation of the factors of degradation of the studied types of land cover is made according to the following criteria, particularly for agricultural land - by linear erosion and growing of scrubs; for forests - by drying and deforestation; for water - by overgrowing and drying. To achieve the set goal the authors of the research used expert, cartographic, abstract and logical methods. Results of the research are of practical importance both for Ukrainian and for Latvian institutions of environmental protection and management of land use. Application of the presented approach will provide information support and determine measures concerning reclamation of land cover by means of planning of sustainable development of territories at local level.