GIS-analysis of the Influence of the Land Use Type on the Current Diversity of Forest Plantations in the Kenozersky National Park

Abstract

The problem of agricultural land abandonment is a worldwide problem. In the forest zone, the transformation of fallow lands is associated with afforestation and the formation of so-called secondary forest growths. Postagrogenic forests reflect the agricultural history of fallow areas, which imprint the "mute" realities of time and the social order of their development. The type of previous land use creates sufficiently stable factors, which in the process of natural overgrowth are weakly changed by natural factors and affect the emerging forests. In the key area of Kenozersky National Park (middle taiga forest region), located in the Plesetsk District of the Arkhangelsk region, we traced, according to the 1861 boundary plans, the regularities of evolution of land use areas of different categories during forest overgrowth. We assessed the area, tree species and typological structure of modern forests according to the 2014 forest inventory and traced the connection between the transformation of agro-ecosystems into forests and the history of the use of these lands after the land survey. As of the year when the boundary plans were drawn up, more than half of the territory of the key site was under agrarian influence (arable land, perelogs, haymaking, etc.). After 160 years a forest massif was formed (97 % of the territory), in which a part of hayfields was preserved. First of all, perelogs and hayfields were overgrown with forests (99 and 85 %, respectively). The allocation characterization of taxation descriptions of forest stands showed that bilberry and oxalis type pine forests were formed more often (89,7; 81,0; 78.5 %, respectively) on abandoned arable lands, perelogs and hayfields. All formed stands, classified as bilberry and oxalis type pine forests during forest inventory, have rather high productivity (I–II quality classes) and mixed composition. Forests of lower quality classes (III and IV) were rewealed in the formation of bilberry forest type. At present about 70 % of the bilberry and oxalis type pine forests on the 1861 boundary plan, formed on arable land, are dominated by birch (more than 3 units), about 10 % – by gray alder; the share of stands dominated by aspen is high. Reduced soil fertility on swidden plots ensured a more stable position of pine in the composition of emerging stands (60 % of pine-dominated stands). The character of tree species composition in stands formed on hayfields corresponds to lands with high soil fertility, which indicates the formation of hayfields on abandoned arable land. The studies have demonstrated significant differentiation of derived forest landscapes, sometimes hidden due to the widespread growth of the main forest-forming species and the formation of zonal-type forests. Intralandscape differentiation associated with the history of agricultural development has been preserved for more than 100 years and requires close study. For citation: Kozykin A.V., Nakvasina E.N. GIS-analysis of the Influence of the Land Use Type on the Current Diversity of Forest Plantations in the Kenozersky National Park. Lesnoy Zhurnal = Russian Forestry Journal, 2023, no. 5, pp. 27–41. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.37482/0536-1036-2023-5-27-41