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Based on the integrated use of field, remote and laboratory methods, the fire hazard of landscapes in the Tunka Depression (Southwestern Pribaikalie) has been assessed. The highest frequency of fires is observed in pine forests, confined to sandy massifs in the central part of the depression and the southern slopes. Based on statistical analysis, it has been found that the fire frequency in these forests is, on average, 1,8 times higher compared to forests of other types (small-leaved, cedar, and spruce). In more than half of the cases, fires in pine forests are accompanied by a high degree of damage to the tree stand with the formation of burned wood. Forests with a predominance of small-leaved species are susceptible exclusively to ground fires; their flammability is assessed as the lowest. Among them, the landscapes of the northern slopes are characterized by a complete absence of signs of fires during the study period. Using one-factor dispersion analysis, it has been revealed that with an increase in the NDVI values (improvement of the state of the vegetation cover) and a decrease in the MSI values (increase in the moisture supply of phytocenoses), the fire hazard of landscapes decreases. A linear dependence was found between the granulometric composition, which determines the water-holding capacity of soils, and the level of water stress, as well as the state of vegetation. An increase in fire hazard was noted in sites with a granulometric composition lighter than loam, resulting from a reduced ability of soils to supply sufficient moisture to biotic landscape components. The obtained results confirm the validity of using Earth remote sensing data in general and vegetation indices in particular in studying fire dynamics and assessing potential fire hazard.

The article considers the features of post-fire restoration of forest communities in the V.V. Raevsky “Malaya Sosva” Nature Reserve depending on the location, intensity, and age of the pyrogenic factor. Based on remote sensing data, maps of the spatial distribution of fire outbreaks were compiled using Landsat imagery. According to the results of field studies, reforestation in the burned areas of 2012 was recorded. It has been revealed that in the reserve’s pine forests, reforestation after fires occurs without a change in species. It has been established that in the first years after fires, despite their intensity, mass shoots of Scots pine appear in key areas. Natural regeneration is uniform in almost all areas. The NDVI vegetation index was calculated to quantitatively assess vegetation condition, and the MSI index was used to quantitatively assess plant moisture as a factor determining the level of fire resistance. High intensity of vegetation of forest stands is observed in areas where fires occurred more than 50 years ago. The lowest NDVI values were obtained at the test sites exposed to severe crown fires in 2012, which is consistent with geobotanical descriptions made during field observations. The test sites where plants were most provided with moisture bear traces of old fires, while the most elevated areas, where high-intensity fires occurred, are the driest, as confirmed by the MSI values from 1 to 1,2.

The article presents an analysis of the spatiotemporal differentiation of temperature characteristics in the Primorsky Range landscapes, obtained during 15 years of microclimatic observations. The work is based on data from automatic monitoring of air temperature and relative humidity at a height of 2 m from the surface, soil surface temperature, and soil temperature at a depth of 40 cm. The analysis of the microclimatic monitoring data showed that the close relationship between soil and air temperature regimes depends on landscape conditions. Within the study area, the main climate-forming factors at the local level are vegetation, orography, and distance from Lake Baikal. Open areas, compared to forested ones, are characterized by greater amplitudes of air and soil temperatures in both diurnal and annual cycles. The warming and cooling effects of Lake Baikal on the temperature regime of the adjacent territory are manifested no higher than 1000 m along the slope of the Primorsky Range. This study statistically confirms the relationships between air temperature series at study sites in similar landscapes. Several groups of sites can be identified, each differing in temperature regime; the number and composition of these groups vary throughout the year, depending on limiting factors. The results of the study, which identified patterns in the distribution of air and soil temperatures, will be useful for restoring missing data in shorter series and can subsequently be applied to reconstruct temperature regimes in areas not covered by the microclimate observation network. Furthermore, the identified patterns will serve as a basis for creating parametrization of processes in mountainous regions and scaling the results of global climate model calculations at the local and regional levels.

The article examines current issues related to the development of the chemical industry in Irkutsk oblast as an integral part of the chemical complex of the Russian Federation. It was found that the chemical industry entered a consolidation stage in the 2000s. New economic ties were formed, new product markets were entered, and a transition to a qualitatively new technical and technological level was achieved. Interregional chemical clusters are actively being formed. All this has ensured the competitiveness of the region’s chemical complex in the Russian and foreign markets. It has been established that the main problems of the region’s chemical complex are: insufficient supply of domestic raw materials, high prices for raw materials and transportation costs, high level of production facilities depreciation, insufficient capacity of the domestic market, and a number of others. It is concluded that the chemical industry in Irkutsk oblast, although not playing a system-forming role in the region’s economy, occupies a significant share of industrial production and has a significant impact on the development of other industries. It is shown that chemical complex enterprises are city-forming for some areas of the region and ensure social stability. It has been revealed that the prospects for the development of deep processing of chemical products are constrained by low profitability and a limited product market. The pharmaceutical industry is an exception, where prospects are linked to the production of medicines based on regional scientific developments. It has been determined that there are opportunities in Irkutsk oblast to create innovative low-tonnage chemical production facilities at the former site of Usolyekhimprom LLC with the establishment of a Federal Chemistry Center. The prospects for the development of the industry are also linked to the implementation of new projects in the field of gas chemistry in the north of the region, the production of potash fertilizers, and the development of import substitution in the production of high value-added polymer-based products. It is also shown that the need to take into account the ESG-agenda will play an increasingly important role in the development of chemical production. The feasibility of developing comprehensive programs for the development of the chemical complex at both the federal and regional levels is substantiated.

The article identifies trends and features of the spatial development of the Trans-Siberian Economic Corridor within the Siberian Federal District (the territories of Omsk, Novosibirsk, and Kemerovo oblasts, Krasnoyarsk krai, and Irkutsk oblast). The economic corridor is considered as a set of municipalities at the levels of an urban district and a municipal area, formed along the Trans-Siberian multimodal transport route, the core of which is the railway. The study was conducted using statistical, cartographic, and comparative-geographical methods. Based on statistical and cartographic sources, several types of municipalities were identified in the Trans-Siberian Corridor, namely: regional centers, suburban municipalities (within urban agglomerations), and peripheral municipalities. Rural settlement zones and main urbanized areas in places of maximum population concentration were identified. Thus, the demographic potential of the Trans-Siberian Economic Corridor constitutes more than half of the population of the corresponding regions. By the industrial output, the region’s municipalities were ranked, and industrial specialization was revealed. The mutual influence of the development level, industrial specialization, the distribution of productive forces and the demographic situation and the transformation of settlement patterns were assessed. The geographical aspects of spatial development are expressed in the strengthening of two partially overlapping gradients of population and production concentration, namely: trunk-peripheral and central-peripheral ones. Agglomeration effects were found to predominate over trunk effects. The agglomeration effects are particularly pronounced in the example of the concentration of housing construction in regional centers and their suburban areas. This study, limited to the territories of the Siberian Federal District, provides an understanding of the spatial development of the most populated, economically diversified part of the Trans-Siberian Economic Corridor. Territorial expansion of the research will make it possible to update the geographical picture of the spatial development of the entire Trans-Siberian Economic Corridor.

The article reveals the sectoral and geographical structures of foreign trade turnover of Siberian regions with its bordering countries: China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. It highlights the place of Siberia in the structure of the Russian economy, and the problem of distortion of its statistical indicators. The role of Siberia’s foreign trade on a national and global scale, as well as the dynamics of its share and value indicators since 2017 are analyzed. The geographical structure of Siberia’s trade turnover is revealed. The issues of the Russia’s role in its trade with China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia are touched upon. The share and value indicators of trade turnover, and commodity groups of exports and imports of each Siberian region with countries adjacent to Siberia, are calculated. A more detailed attention is paid to the leading regions in the structures of export and import. The features of the foreign trade structures of various Siberian regions are identified. The importance of foreign trade with China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia for the regions of Siberia is revealed. The article touches upon the issue of the emerging competition between Siberia and Mongolia in the export of similar commodity groups to foreign markets, primarily coal, copper ores and concentrates. The routes of commodity flows between Siberia and neighboring countries are explained. The main border crossings in the trade turnover with the countries under consideration are identified. The issues related to China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative are briefly touched upon. The article also considers issues of the future foreign trade turnover of Siberia with neighboring countries, such as the predicted increase in the role of China and Kazakhstan in Siberia’s foreign trade in the near term, and the instability of the prospects for trade between Mongolia and Siberia due to the narrow range of goods they supply. An analysis is made of the transformation of the geographical directions of the foreign trade structure on a national scale in the early 2020s using the example of the export of coal as the main cargo of Siberian railways. Specific cases of prospects for the development of Siberian foreign trade relations are predicted. The article concludes by examining the emerging need to diversify the geographical structure of Russia’s foreign trade.

The article systematizes the national-territorial units of state and municipal structure and other ethnic entities of Eastern Siberia, the hierarchy of which is presented as follows: republics - administrative-territorial units with a special status (former autonomous okrugs) - places of traditional residence of indigenous small-numbered peoples. An analysis of changes in the ethnic composition of the population of Eastern Siberia between the 2010 and 2021 censuses is provided at three territorial levels - macroregional, regional and municipal. Of the 10 groups of peoples identified by geographical location, an increase in the number and a rise in their share are observed only among the indigenous large and small-numbered peoples and the peoples of Central Asia. Russians and indigenous peoples predominate in the total population, the increase in the total share of which reflects the ongoing trend toward decreasing ethnic diversity. Based on the share of the Russian population in municipalities in 2021, the ethnic space of Eastern Siberia was divided into zones, identifying the Russian ethnic core, the contact zone of the Russian mega-core, and its internal and external periphery. It has been established that the dominant trend in the period 1989-2010 toward increasing polarization of the ethnic space into opposite components - the Russian ethnic core and its external polyethnic periphery, i.e. into “Russian” and “ethnic” districts and cities - has weakened significantly and has mostly exhausted itself in the period 2010-2021. This is largely due to the slowdown in growth (Yakuts) or even a decrease in the number (Buryats and especially Khakass) of indigenous large peoples. Therefore, a certain stabilization of the process of monoethnicization in the republics of the macroregion (with the exception of Tuva and partly Yakutia) can be expected.

The article is concerned with the research of land market development at the regional and municipal levels. Regional features of increasing polarization of space between densely populated regional centers and remote peripheral areas are shown. Land turnover characteristics, as well as demographic and migration indicators of municipalities, are selected as a tool reflecting the regional features of agglomeration growth. The article reveals the role of land redistribution, which shows a connection that may not always be apparent with the processes of population migration, but is closely related to the factor of distance between the center and the periphery. As a consequence of these processes, the spatial and social fabric of rural communities is being transformed. A territorial and functional transformation of large cities and their suburban areas is observed (an expansion of suburban areas, the transformation of country dwelling into urban areas, the reproduction of an urban lifestyle by the rural population in the suburbs, the professional transformation of the rural population, etc.). The example of the region demonstrates how agricultural lands, following the all-Russian trend, are acquiring an increasingly important role in the formation of suburbs. The trend toward the exclusion of agricultural lands from the turnover is increasing. Abandoned agricultural lands are used for residential development. The features of the intraregional population migration flow and the spatial distortion of the direction of its vector due to the presence of the region’s largest recreational site, namely, Lake Baikal, as well as border areas, are highlighted. The article uses cartographic material of the processed Rosreestr data from 2011 to 2022, as well as materials of the field studies in rural communities of the Baikal region.

The work was conducted within the framework of creation of a fundamental geographical work, namely: the Atlas of Territorial Development of the Regions of North and Northeast Asia. The study, carried out at a scale of 1:8,000,000, covers the territory located in the sector of the Arctic Ocean drainage basin, extending from the world watershed, located in the center of Mongolia, to the oceanic subarctic of the Russian Federation. The aim of the research was to study and map landscapes to address complex problems of spatial development of the macroregion. The process of map creation associated with classification constructions and geoecological interpretations was carried out within the framework of the geosystem concept of Academician V.B. Sochava. The principles of mapping are formulated, the organization and structure of maps, the forms and content of cartographic information, indicator features and criteria for assessing the state of geosystems in the field of security, and the system of methods and techniques used for the integration approach are defined. Based on previously published larger-scale landscape maps, a unified basic information cartographic framework for producing derivative conjugated maps of geosystems of various content has been created using geoinformation methods and MapInfo Professional GIS software. An idea has been formed about the stability of geosystems of regional rank as an important environmental factor stimulating or constraining the territorial development of the region. The main groups of classification features-indicators and criteria for assessing the stability of geosystems to anthropogenic impacts have been identified. The possibility of creating legends for estimated-predictive, predictive-advisory overview landscape maps and maps of multifunctional geoecological zoning of the territory using various combinations of classification geosystem features is considered. Within the unified atlas system, specially structured geographical information from the landscape map block will serve as a knowledge base on the natural environment, meeting the needs of complex problems of territorial development of the macroregion.

The issue of optimal formation of transport corridors in Mongolia was examined on the basis of a comprehensive assessment of social, economic and infrastructural factors of domestic and international nature. The analysis used options of ten meridional and seven latitudinal transport corridors proposed by the State Great Khural, international organizations, and domestic researchers. The assessment of these options was carried out based on the multi-criteria analysis method for the following five groups of factors: basic conditions of the transport network, the possibility of servicing large cities and populations, border ports conditions, the possibility of connecting to the international transport network, and the possibility of supporting industrial development. Ten criteria and 25 variables were used within the framework of the aforementioned groups of factors, and the relative weights of the criteria were determined. Unlike previous studies, this research takes into account additional criteria, including the transport routes of neighboring countries, the location of cities and border ports, and others. It has been found that such indicators as the presence of cities along the corridors, the population size within their influence zones, and territories suitable for industrial development are of relatively high importance. The assessment identified Mongolia ’ s highest-rated transport corridors: three meridional corridors (Tsagaannuur - Khovd - Bulgan in the western part of the country, Altanbulag - Darkhan - Ulaanbaatar - Dalanzadgad - Gashuunsukhait and Altanbulag - Darkhan - Ulaanbaatar - Zamyn-Uude in the central part) and two latitudinal corridors (Tsagaannuur - Khovd - Bayankhongor - Ulaanbaatar - Choibalsan - Sumber and Tsagaannuur - Khovd - Bayankhongor - Ulaanbaatar - Bichigt). The resulting optimal transport corridor options are important both for supporting national socio-economic development and creating favorable conditions for population settlement, and for connecting Mongolia with neighboring countries, their major transport and logistics hubs, and seaports.