Remote Monitoring of State Forest Shelterbelts in the Steppe Zone of European Russia

State forest shelterbelts are not only one of the components of the ecological framework of sparsely forested steppe territories, but also represent a unique object of steppe afforestation. Age-related changes and a long-term absence of forestry impact negatively affected the sanitary condition of plantations of the state forest shelterbelts. The research is aimed at assessing the current state of the plantations that form the shelterbelts in different soil and climatic conditions in the steppe zone of the European part of Russia. The plantations of the coastal state forest shelterbelts “Voronezh – Rostov-on-Don”, “Belgorod – Don River” and watershed “Volgograd – Elista – Cherkessk” were the research object. The expediency of using the method of remote sensing of the Earth is due to the significant extent and differences in the state of the research object in different soil and climatic conditions. An analysis of the natural conditions of the research region made it possible to determine the boundaries of 5 forestry regions on the main subtypes of zonal soils: ordinary chernozems, southern chernozems and dark chestnut soils; chestnut soils; light chestnut soils with the presence of solonetz and sometimes solonchak soils; and also on azonal sandy soils. Based on the data of our own field surveys of artificial plantations, the interpretation of space images of state forest shelterbelts was carried out using the learning algorithm and spectral indices in the ENVI 5.2 software package. As a result of interpretation, it was found that the safety of state forest shelterbelts decreases as forest conditions become more severe from ordinary chernozems to light chestnut soils from 92.3 to 36.5 %. Oak forests, ash forests, and elm forests predominate in the species composition on zonal soils, and pine forests predominate on azonal soils. With the deterioration of forest site conditions, the share of oak in plantations decreases, it is replaced by elm, the density of plantations decreases. Forest strips on chernozems, dark chestnut and sandy soils are also the most prosperous in sanitary terms. Plantations growing on chestnut and light chestnut soils are characterized by digression increasing with age or complete decay of the forest environment. The conducted research allows to identify the location of plantations in the stage of degression or decay within the state forest shelterbelts, and to recommend for them the nature and volume of forestry impact for the conservation and restoration of the forest.