Assessment of landscape and environmental conditions of Susuman district of Magadan region

Abstract

In Susuman district of Magadan region, against the background of natural processes, the manifestation of human economic activity is very noticeable, causing a change in the relief. This is due to the industrial development of placer gold deposits, which led to serious violations of the natural complexes of river valleys. The peculiarity of the territory of Susuman district is the imposition of severe climatic conditions and the specifics of human anthropogenic activity, which creates such particularly crisis situations in the environment as thermokarst, soil erosion, waterlogging, flooding of all low landforms, pollution with heavy metals. To assess the violations of the landscape, an analysis of the severity of environmental situations was carried out, which showed that the environmental situation in the area is tense, and in some areas it turns into a critical one. It should be noted that the actual area of disturbed land in  Susuman district is much larger than the statistical one. The largest areas of the district are in the gradation of significant and minor anthropogenic loads. The weighted average coefficient shows the average degree of anthropogenic load on this territory, which is still preserved due to a large area of forests. However, this does not mean that there is no risk of deterioration of the landscape and environmental situation in  Susuman district.

 With intensive use of land for mineral exploitation and extraction without compliance with environmental measures, the area of disturbed land will increase by 3-4 thousand hectares every ten years. In addition, some landscapes have irreversible violations.  Therefore, it is recommended not to rely on natural restoration of landscapes but to carry out technical and biological land reclamation.