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Differentiation of Soil Processes by Stages of Soil Formation in the Regions of a Dry Climatic Belt

  • SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF ARID TERRITORIES
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Abstract

Modern manifestation of desertification stages and of arid degradation and the dynamics of the development of these processes depending on soil fertility under arid conditions are analyzed based on the example of some areas of the Western Caspian Sea Region: the Terek-Kuma Lowland and the Terek River delta. There are two stages of the development of degradation processes, which strongly differ in their combination and area distribution. The first stage, natural degradation, starts from the development of soil-forming processes in the Holocene as one of the obligatory elements of the functioning of living organisms on the Earth surface. The natural dynamics of degradation processes results in the formation of an equilibrium status of formation of soils of particular types with a complete profile structure. Depending on soil-forming conditions typical for degradation (salinization, pollution, solonetzicity of soils at different stages of their evolution), solonchaks, solonetzes, and sand and clay deserts are formed. These soil properties continue to develop under natural conditions at the present time and their evolution that started in the Holocene goes on (Akaev, 1996). At the second stage, the dynamics of arid degradation and desertification is caused by the anthropogenic impact and radically differs from the natural degradation. As a result of the increased anthropogenic load, the natural soil cover is replaced by an unstable secondary one under man-made conditions. The development of new directions of soil formation is favored by the expansion of irrigated lands in the Terek River delta, the Terek-Kuma Lowland, and other regions and by the subject of cultivated soils to salinization, wind erosion, and degradation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Federal Agrarian Scientific Center of the Dagestan Republic, 367014, Makhachkala, Russia

    M. M. Alichaev & M. G. Sultanova

  2. Institute of Geology, Dagestan Federal Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, 367000, Makhachkala, Russia

    P. D. Musalaeva

Authors
  1. M. M. Alichaev
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  2. M. G. Sultanova
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  3. P. D. Musalaeva
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Correspondence to M. M. Alichaev or P. D. Musalaeva.

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Translated by I. Bel’chenko

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Alichaev, M.M., Sultanova, M.G. & Musalaeva, P.D. Differentiation of Soil Processes by Stages of Soil Formation in the Regions of a Dry Climatic Belt. Arid Ecosyst 12, 382–388 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1134/S2079096122040035

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S2079096122040035

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