The return of the steppe large-scale restoration of degraded land in southern Russia during the post-Soviet era

Comparing satellite images from 1989 and 1998, we analysed environmental changes in the North Caspian lowland during the period of post-Soviet transformation. Research was carried out in four representative test areas, situated in the Ilmen Lake Region and the adjacent Kalmykien Steppe west of the Volga delta. In all test areas significant changes have taken place during the last decade, most of them induced by the abandonment and extensification of former agricultural land use. Most obvious is the sharp decline of irrigated arable land, to less than 5% of its former extent. Reduced livestock grazing has led to a recovery of formerly degraded desert steppe vegetation in all test areas. trast to recent scientific publications and statements of regional and international environmental authorities (UNEP), which assume that desertification risk has even increased after the break down of the Soviet system, our results clearly show the widespread regeneration of formerly altered and degraded land between 1989 and 1998. amatic decay of agriculture observed, was induced by the breakdown of the Soviet state farm system, which heavily depended on huge subsidies from the central government. Our findings prove that environmental impacts caused by agriculture, like destruction of natural habitats, salinisation of soils, pasture degradation and wind erosion, have diminished considerably in the last decade, while ecological rehabilitation and the preservation of bio-diversity values are favoured by this development. This seems to apply to large areas in the southern part of the former USSR that have undergone a comparable decline of state ruled agriculture.