Hierarchical Organization and Stability of Geographical Spaces: Ecological–Geographical Analysis

This article describes a strategy for the quantitative analysis of mono- and polysystem organization of multilevel geospaces with the construction of a series of empirical models of intercomponent and intercomplex connections. As a methodological basis, a provision on structural levels of natural–territorial organization is proposed based on a conceptual cybernetic model of a natural complex as a hierarchical control system. Using the model, a system of conjugation of different-level characteristics of natural components with a taxonomic rank of geographic spaces (from a geographic sector and natural zone to a landscape facies and biogeocenosis) is constructed. Based on the spatiotemporal relationships of intercomponent and intercomplex connections, a hypothetical cycle of the trajectory of changes in the states of geospaces in their spontaneous development and under anthropogenic disturbances is described. The assessment of the dynamics of geospaces is carried out through operations with their ecological niches in the zones of their contact and intersection, i.e., in trigger zones. The stability of different-order geospaces to external disturbances is proposed to be expressed by measures of significance of their representation of the entire variety of input environmental factors. These measures serve as generalized criteria of homeostatic reserves of natural complexes. They are calculated on the basis of matrices and digraphs of their inclusion relations for a particular set of system-forming factors using the Shannon information function. Using the example of the southern taiga of the Volga basin, an example of calculating one of these measures in relation to a change in the average July temperature is given.