The Russian Federation is one of many countries that have signed the Montreal Protocol and Pan-European Forest Process. These initiatives are aimed at harmonizing national forest inventory systems with criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management. In Russia, the classification of forest type is at the heart of national forest inventory systems. For various historical reasons, Russian scientific advancements in the field of forest typology remain little known in the rest of the world. This paper is aimed at addressing this deficiency. Here, we provide an overview of the main trends in the field of forest typology studies in the previous political states of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. We detail the principles that formed the basis of the most significant forest type classifications. We also perform similarity and differences analyses comparing approaches used by members of different scientific schools in the field of forest typology. The historical relationship between ecological, phytocoenotic, genetic, and dynamic forest type classifications are discussed as well as the reasons for the prevalence of certain forest type classifications in different regions of Russia.

This paper presents an analysis of achievements and the current state of one of the main trends of forest typological studies in the Russian Federation, namely, the genetic approach to the classification of forest types. The article describes the theoretical foundations of genetic typologies created by the founders of this approach. The article explains the relationship between the concepts of the forest-forming process and forest types. This article also includes a detailed description of the concept of forest-forming epochs according to the degree and depth of human impact on forests, as well as the forms and technical means of this impact, with examples of the practical use of genetic typologies in forest engineering and management. The article provides an analysis of the main directions of development and improvement of genetic typologies, taking into account anthropogenic impacts at different levels and strengths, climate change, and the use of new technologies to reveal the potential of the genetic approach to the classification of forest types.

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This paper presents results of analyzing the second half of the 20th–early 21st century changes in lateral spatial structure of Larix sibirica Ledeb. population in the upper treeline ecotone located on the Rai-Iz massif (Polar Urals, Russia). The GIS layers characterizing distribution of Siberian larch trees and undergrowth together with their crowns was produced for a 7.32 square kilometer area based on aerial images recognition. Using statistical models, we assessed probabilities for assigning trees to age intervals of 1–10, 11–40, and 40+ years based on the average radius of tree crown projection. These maps and layer showing locations of trees that grew in the upper part of the ecotone, and died during the Little Ice Age, allow for assessing specifics of forest cover proliferation at different parts of upper treeline ecotone, and comparing current location of the trees with one from the past. The proposed method for probability-based recognition of Siberian larch tree generations in the upper treeline ecotone using average crown radius can be used to reconstruct time and spatial forest dynamics at the upper growth boundaries for time spans up to 100 years and more.

Paper describes key elements of a genetic approach to classification of forest types – one of the original forest typological research directions in Russia summarizes the results of research over the hundred-year period of formation and development of this promising (from the point of view of sustainable management of natural resources) scientific direction. Authors provide a map of current forest type genetic classification use in the Russian Federation, and outline key perspective directions in the development of genetic classifications within a framework of the described approach. Modern genetic forest typology is an interdisciplinary science. It uses forestry, soil science, biogeography, and landscape ecology, allow you to reflect the processes of forest vegetation dynamics in syntaxons and on maps. Therefore, it gives excellent results for systematizing not only primary forests, but also a variety of secondary plant communities with extremely variable composition. Authors believe that there are the following main avenues of genetic approach to forest type classifications development: improvement of forest zoning technologies based upon assessment of environmental factors’ quantitative values, including development of spatial models for estimating factor values; development of new automated quantitative assessment methods for forest site conditions and tree stands’ parameters using high spatial resolution data obtained from aerial drones; development and verification of the rules for combining forest areas with relatively close parameter values, i.e. with similar forest-growing conditions, in one spatial unit; development and verification of the rules for combining spatial units with relatively different forest-growing conditions into larger units according to applied silvicultural practices; Improvement of existing and development of new forest typological schemes reflecting changes in climate conditions that can be applied for zones with high levels of anthropogenic impacts; development of silvicultural practices and logging technologies considering classification schemes of forest type dynamics; Genetic studies of the populations that compose forest communities. Genetic forest type classification is based upon the origin (genesis) and development of forests. Therefore, genesis studies of forest communities based on genetic analysis of the populations will become the core theme of the future fundamental research in this area.