Soil salinization and floodplain ecosystems of south-west Turkmenistan

Abstract

In the period of scientific and technical progress, the need to make protection of the environment, a habitat of humanity has become extremely urgent. Land ecosystems are extremely vulnerable in arid regions. They respond even to insignificant changes in the environment, which may result in irreversible modifications of ecosystems and often in the complete loss of their scientific, social, and economic value. Intra-zonal hydromorphic landscapes undergo the greatest transformations. Evidence of disruption of the natural functioning of any landscape is clearly visible from an analysis of its most vulnerable components—vegetation and soils.