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Shrinkage of the Developed Space in Central Russia: Population Dynamics and Land Use in Rural Areas

  • RURAL STUDIES
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Abstract—

The article is based on an integrated approach that includes joint consideration of shrinkage of traditional agricultural land use, an increase in the share of small and abandoned villages, and expansion of new types of recreational use of rural areas around Moscow and Moscow oblast. The use in the article of statistical indicators for federal subjects and municipal districts, as well as satellite images, gives a multiscale and fractional picture of the shrinkage of land use, which in recent years more and more clearly geographically replicates the historical process of development of these territories, only with the opposite sign. Agricultural production is “shifting” to areas with better natural conditions, including within regions. The tendency of its concentration in the suburbs with accumulated investments, labor resources, sales opportunities, and infrastructure is gradually changing to development in the areas with better soils, sometimes remote from cities. The population, however, continues to concentrate in cities and suburbs of regional centers, which contributes to shrinkage of the inhabited space. These multidirectional trends are confirmed by statistical calculations for municipal districts for the period from 1990 to 2017. The results are illustrated and confirmed by maps, based on satellite images. The maps show arable agricultural and fallow lands, as well as the spread of abandoned and small villages. Calculations for municipal districts based on information obtained from maps make it possible to correct statistical indicators and see the real changes in the rural settlement pattern and land use. The cartographic method also made it possible to identify the possibilities and limitations of redevelopment of rural areas by urban residents, including not only the expanding areas of second home settlements (dacha settlements), but also the dachas of urban residents in depopulated villages.

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Notes

  1. We considered ten regions of the Central Federal District experiencing Moscow’s strong influence and transformation of settlement pattern and land use: Moscow, Smolensk, Tver, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Ivanovo, Vladimir, Ryazan, Tula, and Kaluga oblasts.

  2. When analyzing statistical indicators, as an indicator of changes in land use in agriculture, the article used the indicator of sown area, for which Rosstat annually publishes data by federal subjects and municipal districts. At present, with the significant abandoned areas of arable land and pastures and their rarer reintenvory, statistical data on sown areas more accurately reflect the real areas of land used in crop production.

  3. United States Geological Survey (USGS) Archives for period from 2000 to 2014. http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/.

  4. A detailed analysis of the contours and degree of overgrowth of abandoned land requires a larger-scale consideration of individual key areas using aerial photographs from different times and is planned for the next publication.

  5. Federal information systems (Public cadastral map of Rosreestr—https://pkk.rosreestr.ru/ and the Information System of the Ministry of Agriculture (EFIS ZSN)—http://efis.mcx.ru/) include hundreds and thousands of errors. Their source is the difference between the reported and actual land and violation of the necessary agricultural measures. Rosstat periodically orders research from the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences to verify the reporting information. There is also a group under the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation that validates submitted regional data using satellite imagery. All of these studies point to discrepancies with official statistics. A special problem is perennial grasses, which in our study are classified as fallow areas, since there is no active farming in fields. Observations in Kostroma, Yaroslavl, and Tula oblasts showed that in areas with a large amount of abandoned land, such fields in the second or third year differ little from the surrounding fallow areas.

  6. Part of agricultural land in the suburbs of large cities has a characteristic appearance: infrequent plowing (every few years), the presence of a heterogeneous vegetation structure, and periodic mowing. This set of features is primarily because owners, in order to avoid fines for nonuse of agricultural land, periodically carry out agricultural activities, but in fact do not use the land for its intended purpose.

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Funding

The study was carried out by T.G. Nefedova under the state-ordered research theme of the Institute of Geography RAS, no 0148-2019-0008 (“Problems and Prospects of Russia’s Territorial Development in the Context of Its Unevenness and Global Instability”). The preparation of statistical information from Rosstat from 1990 to 2018 for municipal districts was carried out by T.G. Nefedova and A.V. Sheludkov. The study based on space imaging data was developed by A.A. Medvedev within the framework of the state-ordered research theme of the Institute of Geography, RAS “Geoinformation and Cartographic Analysis and Remote Monitoring of the Interaction Between Nature and Society”, no. АААА-А19-119022190168-8.

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  1. Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119017, Moscow, Russia

    T. G. Nefedova & A. A. Medvedev

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  1. T. G. Nefedova
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Correspondence to T. G. Nefedova or A. A. Medvedev.

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Nefedova, T.G., Medvedev, A.A. Shrinkage of the Developed Space in Central Russia: Population Dynamics and Land Use in Rural Areas. Reg. Res. Russ. 10, 549–561 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1134/S2079970520040073

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