Agroecological assessment of agrarian land use as a basis to increase its sustainability

Research has carried out a comprehensive agroecological assessment of the agrolandscapes state of the arid steppe of Altai Krai, which is an agrarian significant territory and includes nine municipal district. It has assessed the natural resource potential and the ecological state of the territory. It was revealed that the features of the landscapes and the resource potential of the study area determine it as unstable, and agricultural land use should be based on a system of soil protection measures aimed at reducing erosion processes (deflation), which are almost universally manifested on agricultural land. The structure of cultivated areas analysis showed that the leading place is occupied by cereals and legumes, fodder crops vary by region the most, the structure is focused on obtaining commercial benefits and does not take into account the quality of the land, as well as environmental requirements. The crop rotation system is dominated by spring wheat, which is the reason for the constantly decreasing soil fertility. An essential element aimed at preserving the ecological stability of the arid steppe should be the ecological framework of the territory, calculated taking into account the degree of plowed-up, the share of field-protective plantations, the share of anthropogenically modified elements, the coefficient of the landscape state, the deflationary hazard of arable land and other indicators aimed at bringing the structure of agricultural landscapes to natural landscapes. The optimization of agricultural land use conducted in the arid steppe of Altai Krai will require changes in the structure of the land fund of administrative regions, the structure of agricultural land, sown areas and crop rotations, which will lead to a decrease in anthropogenic load, as well as the cost of production per hectare, and thereby increase its sustainability.