Quantifizierung von Winderosion und Bodendegradation in der semiariden Kulundasteppe (Westsibirien)

The knowledge about the effects of land management practices on land degradation in the Russian Federation and the succession states of the Soviet Union has improved considerably over the last few years. Recently nationally and internationally comparable Datasets on soil degradation have become available, such as GLASOD (Global Assessment of Human-induced Soil Degradation), ASSOD (Soil Degradation in South and Southeast Asia), LADA (Land Degradation Assessment in Drylands) and NEESPI (Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative) as well as the national report On the Status and Use of Land in the Russian Federation . Because of the scale limitations (1:1,5M and 1: 2,5 Mio) their benefit for spatial planning and the development measures on sustainable development at regional and local scale is very limited. None the less, soil science has a long tradition in the estimation of soil degradation, also at smaller scales. The combination of this and the ASSOD experience (Van Lynden & Oldemann 1997, van Linden 2000), especially the methodical framework of Gerasimova & Karaeva (2005),Vilchevskaya & Kalinina (2005) and our own experiences in South Siberia (Frühauf  & Meinel 2006) show a methodological solution for the recording, typification and regionalisation of soil degradation patterns at different scales (from 1: 10.000 to 1: 500.000). At the same time the existing soil erosion indices (Paramonov et al. 2003) will be included in the analyses, because they reflect erosional damage at the regional scale,  The proposed analyses result in multitemporal soil data sets over a long time scale and present the opportunity to analyse soil degradation as a function of land use development at lower scales. Field studies of soil properties and degradation indicators at test sites at three landscape units (forest steppe, typical steppe and dry steppe) support these analyses and provide information about landuse effects on soil under current and new management practices. Results of the field investigations serve as input data at a regional approach. The up-scaling of detected degradation patterns leads to a primary data base for planning and management decisions. Further, a combination of field and laboratory analyses and remote sensing analyses is required to detect generalizable causal relationships of land use and soil degradation.