The effects of institutional changes on landscapes in Ukraine

Abstract

Ukraine has a great variety of natural landscapes because the country contains parts of four landscape zones and two mountain regions. However, most of Ukraine’s landscapes have been severely altered by human activities, especially agriculture, mining, and industrial activities. These landscape changes had profound effects on ecosystem processes. For example, according to our data for the western part of Ukraine, changes in vegetated areas decreased the amount of absorbed carbon in 2000 by one thousand tons compared to the 1990 value. Thus, a larger fraction of unabsorbed carbon remained in the atmosphere, contributing to a stronger "greenhouse effect". Similarly, the excessive use of water resources since the 19th century decreased the water and sediment inflow into the deltas of the Black Sea basin and changed their landscapes. In summary, socio-economic transformations after the breakup of the Soviet Union together with climate change effects have been widespread in Ukraine.