Ecological and geographical mapping of Russian economic regions based on GIS technologies

In the current conditions the successful solution of global problems, which brought mankind to the brink of survival on the planet, require using a combination of modern technology and interdisciplinary methodological basis for scientific research. This paper covers an issue of estimating the degree of territory development in Russia, which is performed on an interdisciplinary basis with the integration of approaches of environmental geography, regional economics, environmental management and spatial economics. A multiscale comprehensive assessment of human expansion and actual character of the use of large areas in the Russian Federation is implemented on the basis of geographic information systems technology. The provided maps demonstrate the actual distribution of economic area of the country. The authors consider and illustrate the regional socio-environmental and economic and geographic features of large urban areas and underdeveloped territories in the European and Asian parts of Russia, which determine the actual unequal distribution of urbanized and agricultural development areas of the country's land fund. To indicate the best preserved natural geosystems, a new for Russia concept “wild nature” was selected. The calculations of the degree of economic development of the Russia's territory allow to receive a new understanding of the relationship of the traditional forms of management with geographic ideas of polarized development. This indicator is successfully integrated into the existing schemes of eco-geographical and resource management zoning of the country. The necessity to refuse the “total development” of Siberia, the North and the Far East of Russia is specially emphasized, because a global problem of anthropogenic disturbance in the Eurasian continent brings significant social and environmental changes in people's lives.