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Environmental Assessment of Changes in Regional Industrial Structures in Russia at the Beginning of the 21st Century

  • SPATIAL FEATURES OF SECTORAL DEVELOPMENT
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Abstract—

Structural changes in industry in Russian regions for 2005–2019 were assessed from an environmental standpoint. The decrease in the share of the extractive industry and hazardous activities in the manufacturing industry was seen as an environmentally progressive change in regional industrial structure (its greening), and a change for the opposite, as degreening. There was an increase in mineral resources extraction in the absolute majority of Russia’s main producing regions, while in half of them, it increased by more than 1.5 times, and in a quarter, it more than doubled. A northeastern vector of development of the country’s extractive industry has clearly emerged, causing a relative shift of large-scale impacts on nature to Eastern Siberia, the Far East, and the European North to ecologically significant and easily vulnerable landscapes of the permafrost zone, as well as to shelf areas. The number of regions where the share of mining in industrial output exceeds 50% increased from 9 to 14. In two-fifths of Russian regions, the share of environmentally hazardous industries in the manufacturing sector has significantly increased. In regions where nature-intensive production is significantly reduced (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and Tatarstan), industries of primary processing of raw materials have appeared, which are also not environmentally friendly. Only in Belgorod, Kaliningrad, and Murmansk oblasts have both industrial structures in general and their manufacturing sectors become more environmentally friendly. Interregional differences in the level of environmental friendliness of industrial structures increased. Methodological and informational difficulties prevented the author from establishing a relationship between structural changes in the industry of Russian regions and dynamics of impacts on natural components.

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Notes

  1. Regions of Russia. Socioeconomic Indicators. 2002–2020, Federal State Statistics Service, https://gks.ru/bgd/regl/ b20_14p/ Main.htm. Accessed October 30, 2021; Russian Statistical Yearbook, 1994, Goskomstat Rossii, Moscow, 1994; Russian Statistical Yearbook, 2003–2020, Federal State Statistics Service, https:// gks.ru/bgd/regl/b20_13/Main.htm. Accessed October 30, 2021; State Report “On the State and Protection of the Environment of the Russian Federation in 2016,” Moscow: Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia, https:// www.mnr.gov.ru/ docs/o_sostoyanii_i_ob_okhrane_ okruzhayushchey_sredy_rossiyskoy_federatsii/gosudarstvennyy_doklad_ o_sostoyanii_i_ob_okhrane_okruzhayushchey_sredy_rossiyskoy_federatsii_v_2016_/. Accessed October 30, 2021; Environmental Protection in Russia—2020, https://gks.ru/bgd/ regl/b20_54/Main.htm. Accessed October 30, 2021.

  2. Decree of the Russian Federation Government no. 2398 of December 31, 2020 On Approval of Criteria for Classifying Objects Having a Negative Impact on the Environment as Objects of Categories I, II, III and IV, https:// docs.cntd.ru/document/573292854. Accessed October 30, 2021.

  3. The relativity of the degree of environmental friendliness of spheres of activity can be seen from the following example. Such undeniably progressive postindustrial facilities as data centers consume 3–4% of the world’s electricity consumption (Kommersant-Information Technologies, October 26, 2020) and are therefore responsible for their respective share of negative environmental impacts from the power industry.

  4. State resource management. Ecology, Kommersant, Appendix no. 1, September 2, 2021.

  5. Mergings in 2005–2008 decreased the overall number of federal subjects. However, the autonomies that became part of combined subjects were not distinguished by any significant national-scale mining volumes. Therefore, enlargement of federal subjects did not affect the increase in the number of regions dominated by the extractive industry. The same applies to Crimea and Sevastopol, which became part of Russia in 2014. In the article Russia’s borders are considered in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation adopted by popular vote on December 12, 1993, with amendments approved during the All-Russian vote on July 1, 2020.

  6. The map also shows projects for upgrading existing oil refineries, aimed at increasing the yield of propylene (Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, Omsk), as well as the so far closed project of the Rosneft petrochemical complex near Nakhodka.

  7. Possibly, a closer relationship will be revealed when integral indices of anthropogenic impact are used, which include a wide range of impacts, developed, e.g., in (Bityukova, 2014). It is also interesting to analyze how changes in the environmental friendliness of industrial structures affect the state of natural components and complexes (quality of water, air, etc.).

  8. Regeneratsiya, Kommersant, Appendix no. 177, September 30, 2021.

  9. State Report “On the state and Use of Water Resources of the Russian Federation in 2018,” Moscow: NIA-Priroda, 2019.

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Funding

The study was carried out within the state task of the Institure of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, topic no. АААА-А19-119022190170-1 (FMGE-2019-0008).

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

    N. N. Klyuev

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Klyuev, N.N. Environmental Assessment of Changes in Regional Industrial Structures in Russia at the Beginning of the 21st Century. Reg. Res. Russ. 13, 407–418 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S2079970523700740

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