The assessment of herbaceous associations distribution based on the remote sensing data in monitoring the state of mountain meadows in the Central Caucasus (Kabardino-Balkaria)

The possibility to use spatial distribution modelling of meadow associations for monitoring their state in mountain ecosystems of the Central Caucasus, is considered. In that case, the data on radar topographic mapping (SRTM), Landsat satellite photos and natural observational data performed on 4 biological proving grounds in the meadows embracing the elbrusskiy and terskiy variants of vertical zonation, are applied. The analysis of the obtained diagrammatic maps has shown that potentially useful ranges of the objects under study аre presented in them.