The Russian Far East is a region between China and the Russian Arctic with a diverse climatological, geophysical, oceanic, and economical characteristic. The southern region is located in the Far East monsoon sector, while the northern parts are affected by the Arctic Ocean and cold air masses penetrating far to the south. Growing economic activities and traffic connected to the China Belt and Road Initiative together with climate change are placing an increased pressure upon the Russian Far East environment. There is an urgent need to improve the capacity to measure the atmospheric and environmental pollution and analyze their sources and to quantify the relative roles of local and transported pollution emissions in the region. In the paper, we characterize the current environmental and socio-economical landscape of the Russian Far East and summarize the future climate scenarios and identify the key regional research questions. We discuss the research infrastructure concept, which is needed to answer the identified research questions. The integrated observations, filling in the critical observational gap at the Northern Eurasian context, are required to provide state-of-the-art observations and enable follow-up procedures that support local, regional, and global decision making in the environmental context.

No abstract

The results of studies of an acid-base indicator of the snow cover pH in the Primorskii krai for 2004-2005 are analyzed. Long-term observations of precipitation pH in the Russian Far East region are also considered. The results of studies of the snow cover pH of 2005 differed from the earlier data by the lower values of the acid-base indicator. Synoptic analysis demonstrated that acid precipitation in the Primorskii krai could be due to long-range transboundary pollution transport from Central China. The tendency towards a decrease in the precipitation pH values over most of the Far East region is traced from long-term observations, which under conditions of the general economy recession and population decrease can be attributed to transboundary transport of acid precipitation.

Results from analyzing the cyclone paths over East Asia for the period 1997−2009 and the variability in chemical composition of atmospheric precipitation in Primorskii Krai are discussed. It is shown that southwesterly cyclones over Primorskii Krai became more frequent during the time period under consideration. The increase in the number of cyclones forming in the polluted atmosphere of urbanized areas in North-Eastern Asia led to an increase in acid deposition, which is confirmed by data from the international acid deposition monitoring stations of the international EANET network.

Variability of precipitation components in the Far East of Russia is analyzed using the monitoring of their chemical composition. It is demonstrated that the increase in precipitation acidity in the region is caused by the growing concentrations of sulfates and nitrates in precipitation. Transboundary transport determines about 60% of the concentration of sulfates and nitrates in the precipitation over the south of the region. Impact of marine aerosol on the chemical composition of precipitation is significant at some coastal stations only.