Ecological and economic aspects of land desertification

Agricultural lands of the Russian Federation are intensivelysubjected to degradation and desertification as a result of irrational economic activity, which, against the background of unfavorable climatic factors, led to the destruction of natural ecosystems, degradation of the soil cover and ultimately to the creation of the unfavorable ecological environment. About 65 % of 130 million hectares of arable land, are exposed towater and wind erosion. Only by water erosion, 10 % of arable land lost 30-60 % of fertility and almost 25 % lost 10-30 %. As a result of deflation 25 million hectares of agricultural land in the European part of the Russian Federation are degraded to varying degrees. The concept ofthe anti-degradation arrangement proposes touse environmental-economic geoinformational monitoring. Within theframework ofthisapproach, the developmentofcartographicand mathematical modelsin three timeenvironments is proposed: pre-agricultural, modern degraded, and certainly improved condition. The ecological andeconomic analysis makes it possible to synthesize information flows and analyze the most important degradation processes. The most important tool for implementing ther adaptive-landscape anti-degradation arrangement of agricultural landscapes is precision farming, which consists ofseveral subsystems: decision-making, monitoring, agronomic techniques, specialized equipment, etc. Computer technologies and telecommunications allowtospeed up andoptimize production bycombining technologyand people, which helps reduce costs. Precision agriculture is impossible without using modern advances in collecting, processing and storage of various, often heterogeneous, agricultural information.