Multiple trajectories of grassland fragmentation, degradation, and recovery in Russia's steppes

Over the 20th century, the Eurasian steppes underwent drastic land-cover changes. Much progress was made studying cropland expansion and the post-1990 (i.e., post-Soviet) agricultural land abandonment in Eurasia. However, the alteration of steppe landscapes may include other disturbances, such as oil and gas development, formal and informal roads and garbage dumps, which were not systematically documented. Considering the example of the steppe Orenburg Province in Russia, we reconstructed agricultural land-cover change dynamics using Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery from 1990 to 2018. Furthermore, we used very high-resolution imagery and assessed the patterns and determinants of other steppe landscape anthropogenic disturbances. Our study showed that, despite steppe recovery due to widespread cropland abandonment from 1990 to 2018, the steppes, including the recovered steppe patches, underwent fragmentation due to informal roads, oil and gas development, shrub encroachment, garbage dumps and quarries, as well as abandonment of settlements and buildings. Only 6.4% of the sampled 7859 1x1 km blocks in 2018 showing grassland extent had no documented disturbances. The mapped disturbances occurred primarily near settlements and roads, while some disturbances occurred in remote areas. Given the accessibility of steppes, our study calls for a urgent need to systematically document alternatives to agricultural land uses in the steppes of Eurasia and other parts of the global grassland biome.

Automated summary

The study found that despite partial steppe recovery from 1990 to 2018 due to widespread cropland abandonment, steppe landscapes in Eurasia underwent fragmentation due to informal roads, oil and gas development, shrub encroachment, garbage dumps, and abandonment of settlements and buildings. Only 6.4% of the sampled blocks in 2018 showed grassland extent without documented disturbances, with disturbances primarily occurring near settlements and roads, as well as in remote areas. This highlights the urgent need to systematically document alternatives to agricultural land uses in the steppes of Eurasia and other global grassland biomes.