Maps of Agrolandscape and Ecological Zoning of Natural and Natural–Agricultural Ecosystems of the Russian Federation

Agriculture has a large area of coverage and places the greatest burden on land, soil, water, and biological resources in many countries of the world. Agricultural lands occupy huge areas in the world (4.8 billion ha, or 37% of the land) and in Russia (221.9 million ha, or 13% of the area of the Russian Federation). The agriculture best adapted to local conditions is the most beneficial one for people and nature. The main direction of agricultural adaptation is agrolandscape–ecological zoning. In order to provide information support for regional, ecological, and landscape-differentiated agriculture and rational environmental management, an agrolandscape–ecological zoning of natural and natural-agricultural ecosystems was developed for the first time for all eleven natural–economic regions of Russia, namely, the Northern, Northwestern, Volga—Vyatka, Central, Central Black Earth, Volga, North Caucasus, Ural, West Siberian, East Siberian, and Far Eastern zones. The zoning was carried out using comparative geographical and agrolandscape–ecological methods, ecological–landscape, and agroecological approaches. The contour and information basis for zoning is the map of Soil–Ecological Zoning of the Russian Federation from the Faculty of Soil Science, Moscow State University. Maps of other types of zoning, numerous maps and atlases, statistical data, the available literary and stock sources, and ground-based and remote data were also used. Our sets of zoning materials included a map, a map legend, three databases (land, forage lands, and negative processes), two classifications (forage lands, reindeer pastures, if any), articles, monographs, recommendations, and proposals for production. The maps have been compiled on a scale of 1 : 2 500 000 on a modern, highly informative topographic cartographic basis for the map of the Russian Federation. The maps show six types of boundaries, including for types of agrolandscape–ecological ones (taken from the Soil–Ecological Zoning Map): (1) zones, (2) mountainous territories, (3) provinces, (4) districts and two types of administrative ones (available on the cartographic basis) of (1) constituent entities of the Russian Federation, and (2) natural–economic regions.