Morphometric analysis of agricultural landscapes in the transitional zone of south chernozem and dark chestnut soils in Volgograd region

This article presents the results of geoinformation cameral mapping and morphometric analysis of one of the types of agrolandscape - arable land in the Mikhailovsky district of the Volgograd region. The relevance of the study is due to the lack of statistical data regarding the areas and configuration of individual fields, as well as the rapid development of areas of application of geographic information systems and remote sensing data in agriculture. For mapping, the method of visual expert interpretation of multispectral Earth remote sensing data of high (Sentinel satellite images for 2021) and medium (Landsat satellite images for 1986) spatial resolution was used. For morphometric analysis, a digital elevation model “SRTM” with a height resolution of 10 m was used. All operations with raster and vector materials were carried out in the geoinformation environment “QGIS”, statistical processing of the obtained data was carried out in “MS Excel”. 2,248 fields were mapped, which are arable land and fallows, with a total area of 229.8 thousand hectares. It was revealed that the predominant spatial orientation of the fields is the southwestern and northeastern direction, the smallest area is occupied by fields with a southeastern orientation. The largest field area is located in areas with surface slopes up to 1.5°. The maximum slope is 4°. Based on the results of the work, maps-schemes of the exposition and the steepness of the slopes of the fields in the Mikhailovsky district were compiled. The used mapping method based on the interpretation of high-resolution satellite images showed high accuracy. The data obtained can be used as a basis for more detailed studies of arable land in the Mikhailovsky district, as well as for planning land reclamation measures.