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Интеллектуальная Система Тематического Исследования НАукометрических данных |
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High-latitude vegetation located above 60 degrees North, mostly boreal forest and tundra, is a crucial regulator of global environmental processes. It influences climate fluctuations, carbon sequestration, heat and radiation balance, hydrological cycle, etc. At the same time, established human activities in these regions have a significant impact on the state of local vegetation and its dynamics. Furthermore, severe climatic conditions make northern vegetation highly sensitive to both natural and human disturbances because self-restoration in these specific bio-geographical conditions is slow and limited. In this context, the dynamics of boreal vegetation and the forest-tundra interface constitute the most representative index of climatic changes in high-latitude areas. High-latitude forests and tundra are remote, vast and hard-to-reach. This makes remote sensing a powerful and effective method for studying land cover and vegetation at landscape and regional scales. Here we apply the remote sensing approach to assess indicators of ecosystem conditions and related bioproduction processes by looking at the dynamics of individual vegetation species, plant groups and their structural and functional community organisations. While remote sensing has been an established technique for studying hard-to-reach areas, there is a lack of uniformity in studying human impact on highlatitude vegetation, a shortage of its mapping over large territories and a lack of understanding of relationships between human activities and environmental response. Over the past 30 years of researching the ecosystems of the north by applying remote sensing and field studies, we have collected vast interdisciplinary experience and developed a systematic approach to monitoring northern vegetation and land cover changes under human impact. Our area of expertise covers around 400,000 square km and stretches across northern Fennoscandia, above the Arctic circle, both north and south of the treeline. It reaches from Finnmark in Norway, through Norrbotten in Sweden, Lapland in Finland, up to the Murmansk region in Russia. This area is known as a relatively densely populated and highly developed industrial region at high-latitudes. In terms of significant human impact on vegetation it is characterised by copper-nickel air pollution, reindeer grazing, forest logging, fires and infrastructure development. We have been processing numerous Landsat images from open and accessible archives and an extensive collection of field data computing large-scale land cover maps between 1980 and today for the purpose of monitoring impact of human activity at select hotspots in northern Fennoscandia. Strong correlations between the scales of impact corresponding changes in vegetation were clearly detected for all impact types and monitored over the years.