Restoring steppe landscapes: patterns, drivers and implications in Russia’s steppes

Abstract

Context Agricultural land abandonment across the steppe belt of Eurasia has provided an opportunity for the restoration of steppe landscapes in recent decades. However, global food demands are about to revert this trajectory and put restored steppe landscapes at risk. Objectives We analysed steppe development in southern Russia in the last 40 years, assessed its spatial patterns and drivers of change for several periods. Methods Using Landsat imagery, we mapped the permanent steppe and steppe restoration from 1990 to 2018. Based on regression tree models, we evaluate and explain its dynamics. Results were compared with district-level trends in land-use intensities of cropland. Results We found 70% of the steppe in 2018 represented permanent steppe and 30% of former cropland dominantly abandoned in the postsocialism (1990–2000). The permanent steppe and steppe restored in the postsocialism (1990–2000) were located far from settlements, on rough terrain and in districts of the Virgin Land Campaign (1954–1963). In recent decades, the patterns of steppe restoration (2000–2018) were mostly determined by unfavourable agroclimatic conditions and distance from grain storage facilities. The restoration pattern reflects regional differences in land-use intensities, e.g., isolated steppe patches mostly appeared in areas of intensive agricultural land-use. Conclusions Steppe restoration has appeared in areas marginal for agricultural production, with poor natural conditions and little human footprint. Consequently, the permanent steppe became less fragmented and a more continuous steppe landscape resulted. The remaining isolated steppe patches require attention in restoration programs as they are mostly located in areas of intensive agricultural land-use.

Multiple trajectories of grassland fragmentation, degradation, and recovery in Russia's steppes

“…Wheat and sunflower dominate crop production in the Province; livestock production is also common. However, livestock numbers have precipitously declined since 1990 (Rosstat, 2019), resulting in reduced pressure from grazing and hay-cutting and favoring the partial recovery of steppes (Pazur et al, 2021;Rogova & Skvortsov, 2014). The decrease of livestock pressure occurred in parallel with the abandonment of livestock infrastructure, such as dairy farms, barns, and summer livestock outposts, which were partially or completely disassembled; similarly to neighboring northern Kazakhstan (Baumann et al, 2020;Dara et al, 2020).…”

“…The 'Virgin Lands Campaign' programme resulted in the expansion of 43 million hectares of croplands from 1954 to 1963 at the expense of steppes, primarily on agro-environmentally marginal lands (Durgin, 1962;McCauley, 1976). Such marginal lands were prone to abandonment after 1990 (Kraemer et al, 2015;Pazur et al, 2021).…”

“…For each time step, we obtained multi-seasonal Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery through the computation platform Google Earth Engine (GEE). Surface reflectance bands (Red, Green, Blue, NIR, SWIR 1, and SWIR 2 bands) were obtained from May 1st to October 31st and clouds were masked out with quality flags available from GEE (more details can be found in Pazur et al, 2021).…”

“…The steppe landscapes were also modified by Soviet state-induced agricultural programmes, which included widespread planting of tree windbreaks during 'Transformation of Nature' (the late 1940s), massive cropland expansion during the 'Virgin Lands Campaign ' (1954-1963), and post-1963 land development projects (Brain, 2010;Josephson et al, 2013;Munteanu et al, 2020;Prishchepov et al, 2020;Reinecke et al, 2018;Shaw, 2015). After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, due to economic restructuring and other underlying causes, some cultivated farmlands became abandoned (Dara et al, 2018;de Beurs & Henebry, 2004;Kraemer et al, 2015), resulting in the partial self-restoration of the steppes (Baumann et al, 2020;Brinkert et al, 2016;Pazur et al, 2021).…”

“…Landsat imagery has also been used to assess grassland degradation and recovery due to the changed livestock herding regimes in northern Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan (Dara et al, 2020;Kaplan et al, 2014). Therefore, the recent change of the paradigm on the free accessibility of Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery (Zhu et al, 2019), as well as the availability of cloud platforms that offer parallel processing of satellite data on remote servers, such as the Google Earth Engine (Gorelick et al, 2017), has made it possible to perform LULCC analyses on the large steppe areas of Eurasia (Pazur et al, 2021).…”