Editorial: The Russian Far North - a landscape in transition

• Main Author: Annett Bartsch
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Geographical Society of Finland 2015
• Subjects: climate change; natural resources; geo; demo; Yamal Peninsula; permafrost; taiga; Tundra
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/e14cf1b8914544678aeedc020f90d0c3

The Russian Far North is constantly changing with respect to natural as well as socio-economic conditions. Larger temperature and precipitation changes than elsewhere in the world are predicted for this region (IPCC 2013). It includes most of the Northern Eurasian tundra biome with its abundance of small lakes and extents into the taiga forest transition zone. A large proportion is underlain by permanently frozen ground causing specific geomorphological processes at the surface. The Russian Far North is also rich in natural resources, especially oil, gas and ores. Their extraction requires the development of infrastructure and movement of workers over long distances. Local and distant but connected communities have been confronted with these changes for several decades, what lead inevitably to transitions. Current geographical research deals with these changes and their local impact as well as connections within Russia and globally. Especially the Yamal peninsula has been studied for several decades. Industrial development has led here to land cover changes as revealed by satellite data (Kumpula et al. 2011, 2012). The development of a crater-like hole drew worldwide media attention to this region in summer 2014. Leibman et al. (2014) argue that this feature is a result of increasing temperatures and especially the recent occurrence of comparably warm years. This special issue of FENNIA brings together the research results of natural as well as socio-economic changes in the Russian Far North. These developments are tightly connected with the rest of the world and are thus of high interest beyond this specific research community. This special issue has evolved from a workshop organized as part of the Austrian-Russian joint project COLD Yamal financed by the Austrian Science Fund and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (I 1401-N29 and 13-05-91001-AH8 a) which aims to advance our knowledge on landscape dynamics in permafrost regions with focus on Yamal. Its concept has been further developed within the ...