ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROJECT “DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL ACTION PROGRAMS TO COMBAT DESERTIFICATION...” FOR 14 SUBJECTS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Areas affected by land degradation and desertification occupy an area in Russia more than 120 million hectares. Agricultural lands, located mainly in the grain belt of the Russian Federation, suffer particularly from this. In connection with the current situation, in 2022, by order of the Government of the Russian Federation dated October 29, 2022 No. 3240-r, an innovative project of state importance “Unified National System for Monitoring Climate-Active Substances” was approved. In the context of the Project implementation, the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution “Federal Scientific Center for Agroecology, Integrated Land Reclamation and Protective Afforestation of the Russian Academy of Sciences” (FSC Agroecology RAS) conducted research in 2022-2024 “Creation and development of a system for monitoring the current state of desertified lands, modeling and forecasting the development of desertification processes in territories, restoration of damaged lands in arid, subarid and dry subhumid regions to ensure actions to combat desertification”. The study resulted in the National Action Programs to Combat Desertification (NAPCD) for 14 subjects of the Russian Federation (Republics of Buryatia, Dagestan, Kalmykia, Tyva, Khakassia, Chechnya, Territories of Altai, Krasnoyarsk (southern part), Stavropol and Regions of Astrakhan, Volgograd, Saratov, Rostov). One of the significant results of the work was the creation and commissioning of the geoinformation system Desertification and its Monitoring with a mobile application. Its goal is to reduce labor costs for processing and analyzing remote sensing data, optimize the processes of generating information products, create specialized cartographic and reporting materials using neural network algorithms, mathematical and cartographic modeling of the state, functioning and dynamics of desertified territories, as well as managing desertification processes. The presented materials are informative and can be used for predictive assessments and decision-making to minimize anthropogenic impact on ecosystems and combat desertification.