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Under natural conditions, soils of the active layer are open systems of varying composition, structure, and properties. However, in engineering projects, the values of thermal properties measured in laboratory on isolated samples of constant composition are used to describe their thermal state. To take into account the variability of the thermal properties of active layer soils under the influence of external factors, we propose a method for assessing the equivalent indicators of their volumetric heat capacity and thermal conductivity using a combined analysis of dynamics of soil temperature and heat fluxes based on long-term monitoring data. Monitoring of the heat flux and soil temperature has been carried out at two sites, one of which characterizing the area of seasonally freezing soils, and the other - the area of seasonally thawing permafrost-affected soils. A procedure for processing monitoring data is proposed, which makes it possible to determine the time-averaged effective values of the equivalent heat capacity and thermal conductivity. The proposed technique allows one to trace fluctuations of the equivalent heat capacity and thermal conductivity in time series against the background of changes in external factors of heat transfer in the active layer under natural conditions.

This article is devoted to generalizing the world experience of geographical expertise of regional digital development strategies to determine the advantages and disadvantages of emerging approaches. It is established that publications on the geographical expertise in national and supranational strategic documents related to the digital development of regions appeared only in the last decade and have not yet received any theoretical generalization in world science. The selection of publications on the subject under consideration was carried out by using the author’s semantic search algorithm based on the ideas of machine learning. Approximately two dozen journal articles were found in eight bibliographic databases. A comparison of the examination methodologies presented in available identified articles was carried out. Five approaches to identifying geographical contradictions and uncertainties in regional digital development strategies have been identified. According to the main method of expert examination, these approaches are called comparative geographical, cluster, convergent, geopolitical and limological. Nine strategies are listed, among which most publications are devoted to the European document «Digital Agenda». A brief definition is presented, examples of implementation are given, and the main advantage and several main disadvantages for each approach are indicated. It is shown that further research on the issues under consideration may be related to the elimination of the identified shortcomings, the development of new approaches, coverage of new strategies, the geographical verification of the simultaneous implementation of several strategies for the same group of regions, the adaptation of the methodology for identifying geographical contradictions and uncertainties in the digital development strategy of one country for the examination of the strategy of another country, the identification of spatial effects from the implementation of strategies, and the integration of all approaches into a single methodology of geographical expertise. The results can be used to adjust existing and develop new regional development strategies.

We suggest a method of assessing the presence of groups of years with low, medium and high discharges in the flow of major rivers in Asian Russia for a particular observing period. The river discharge was associated with a particular group of discharge by using its average long-term value. The years with discharges smaller than 0.95 or larger than 1.05 of its average long-term value were referred to low or high discharge rivers, respectively. The years with medium discharge included the values of discharge which varied from 0.95 to 1.05 of the average long-term value. It was found that the discharges of the eight major rivers of Asian Russia (Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Yana, Indigirka, Kolyma, Amur and Kamchatka) relatively often include groups of rivers with different discharges: low, medium and high. Most often the length of these groups varies from two to five years. However, the runoff of the Amur river showed groups of low and high discharges with a length of 10 years. The discharge of the Indigirka river showed one group with a length of nine years. The proportion of groups with a length of one year, which are not included in groups of years of different discharges, with respect to the total number of years made up: Ob - 23,5 %, Yenisei - 45, Lena - 43, Yana - 28,8, Indigirka - 26,7, Kolyma - 30,2, Amur - 38,7, and Kamchatka - 36,1 %. The probability change of years with a particular discharge for other discharges was assessed. It is established that in the runoff of the rivers of Asian Russia the probabilities for years with low and high discharges only to persist are the highest.

A study of the problems of transport and energy components in the costs of the economy of Siberia and the Far East is presented. The influence of geographical factors on the production costs of enterprises in the subjects of the Russian Federation located on the territory of the macroregions: Siberia and the Far East is analyzed. Huge spaces and infrastructurally undeveloped distances derived from them, and extreme temperature conditions for most of the year make it fundamentally important to assess the transport, communication and energy components of economic activity in these macroregions. Territorial differences in transport and fuel and energy costs in the Siberian and Far Eastern subjects of the Russian Federation are considered. Since these items of expenditure are derived from climate and geographical location, together they are considered as the main component of geographical costs. A calculation was carried out both in the fractional and in the specific dimension, followed by the integration of the resulting values in the form of an index from 0 to 3. For the spatial analysis of the integral index and its terms, a series of maps was compiled. It is established that the geographical location and specialization of the region affect both the total share of energy costs (its fuel and electricity components) and transport in total production costs, and their structure. The types of transport and energy cost combinations are highlighted: absolutely extreme; fuel increased, high and extreme; electric high and extreme, and transport high and extreme. The approach presented in this study can be used to optimize the siting of productive forces in Asian Russia.

The problem of significant territorial differentiation of the demographic rates in Siberian regions is considered. The relevance of the topic is determined by significant interregional disparities in socio-economical development, and in the level and quality of life of the population of the Siberian macroregion. The socio-demographic potential was evaluated by using different statistical rates of population reproduction. The rating of 16 regions of Siberia was formed according to 10 demographic rates, on the basis of which the grouping of the Siberian territory by favorableness of the socio-demographical potential was prepared. Significant territorial disparities in the coefficients of natural and migration growth, infant mortality, demographic loads, average age, and the proportion of men and women in the structure of population were revealed. The northern Siberian resource regions with attractive economic conditions for the population were given the rate of “favorable”: Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Ugra, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Tyumen oblast, and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The group with the rate of “conditionally favorable” includes the regions with similar demographic processes: the Republics of Tyva, Buryatia and Altai. The regions with a low level of quality of life and natural and migration decrease of population received the rate of “unfavorable”: Kemerovo oblast, Altai krai, and Omsk oblast. A relationship between the identified types of population reproduction and the rate of demographic potential of the Siberian territory was revealed and cartographically visualized. It was established that the territories occupied by indigenous peoples are characterized by a significant role played in the population reproduction by specific features of demographic behavior: lower percentage of divorces, younger age of mothers giving birth to the first children, and the orientation toward families. It is concluded that economic factors, such as the size of salary and regional domestic product, are basic for forming the territorial disparities of the socio-demographic potential of Siberia.

The prospects for the development of geological tourism as one of the directions of ecological educational and scientific tourism on the territory of the Baikal area of the UNESCO World Natural Heritage sites are discussed. According to these authors, this territory can be considered as a biosphere geopark which has the necessary preconditions for creating a system of Geoparks here and raising the question of including them in the global network of UNESCO Geoparks. A specific feature of the geopolygon is its location in the central part of the Baikal rift system and in the Central ecological zone of the Baikal natural territory of high ecological and legal significance. Within the Baikal depression and its mountainous surroundings, there are natural sites of international importance. The basis for the development of geological tourism is formed by the structure of the Earth’s crust, various rocks and minerals, geological formations demonstrating the evolution of the lithosphere, mountainous dissected relief, formed under the influence of the latest tectonic movements, and the specific Baikal climate. Sites of geological tourism have been identified, a geological and recreational zoning of the territory has been carried out, taking into account the features of the geological structure, terrain, the degree of complexity of engineering and geological conditions, the presence and location of unique and valuable geological objects. Geological tourism is considered in the biosphere context, according to which geological processes and phenomena are positioned against the background of ecosystems characterized by high rates of self-healing potential and attractiveness: a special aesthetic and emotional-cognitive attractiveness. This allows the various types of educational and scientific tourism to be combined. The adopted noospheric paradigm involves a high scientific, technical and educational level of training for the development of geological tourism, and ensures the attractiveness and stability of geological objects against the background of living nature. The prospects for further research related to the provision of ecosystem services for organizing and conducting geological excursions and routes have been identified.

The largest cities of the Baikal region, Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude, and the capital of Mongolia Ulaanbaatar are analyzed in terms of the level of their landscaping, the formation of a green framework and the preservation of natural complexes. The assessment of the quantity and quality of landscaping is carried out by using the ideas of territorial nature conservation as well as taking into account the current standards of urban planning documents, which is the main purpose of this article. An attempt is made to give a detailed indication of the composition and area of the elements of green zones, their classification, institutionality, functional purpose, condition, level of protection, sufficiency of landscaping, and comparative characteristics of cities. The potential of each of the cities and its components are shown in the form of area characteristics and digital estimates of urban green zones, and their relationship with normative indicators. A classification of the types of green spaces of the cities has been developed, highlighting specially protected natural areas in accordance with special laws; urban forests and other similar areas determined by resolutions of the city authorities; managed by special municipal entities but not having a special status of green objects; as well as areas important for the greening of the city, but neglected by the city administration. Alternative components of urban greening in the form of territories occupied by cemeteries are highlighted. A so-called brown part of the ecological framework has been defined in the form of industrial, transport and warehouse zones, garage cooperatives, and landfills. The situation of the not obvious sufficiency of the total indicators of the urban greening area and the problems of compliance with regulatory documents on urban planning at the level of residential microdistricts of existing and new buildings is discussed. The task of strengthening the links of the nodes of the “green framework” of the cities is declared as well as the importance of the transition from quantitative to qualitative indicators of landscaping.

An assessment was made of the correctness of using automatic thermographs DS1922L-F5 and thermohygrographs DS1923-F5 in monitoring air temperature and relative humidity in mountain-depression landscapes by comparing data obtained with loggers and standard psychrometric thermometers installed at the Tunka weather station (Republic of Buryatia). A comparative analysis was carried out by using standard statistical methods. It was found that the differences in the readings of the instruments do not exceed the instrumental error of temperature measurement (0.1 °C) in 75 % of cases, and the error in relative humidity measurements (5 %) in 98 % of cases. In analyzing the daily average values, these ranges increase to 80 and 100 % of cases, respectively. The correlation coefficients between data obtained by standard meteorological instruments and compact automatic loggers are higher than 95 % both for temperature and for humidity. Based on the results of the study, the conclusion was drawn regarding the correctness of the use of these instruments in microclimate monitoring. Since 2007, air temperature and humidity measurements have been made at 56 model sites, synchronously with observations at weather stations of Roshydromet. The peculiarities of the temperature regime and the regime of relative humidity of the mountain-depression landscapes of the South-Western Cisbaikalia (Tunka and Mondy depressions) were described. Statistically significant differences in air temperatures on the slopes and at the bottom of each of the depressions in individual months and over a year, and also the differences in the temperature regime between the depressions, due to the structure, area, relative height and depressions coefficient, are shown. In average annual values, the temperature difference between similar landforms in two depressions is about 2 °C. The same order of magnitude is shown by the microclimatic differences between the slopes in each of the depressions.

On the basis of long-term station-based studies and soil-sedimentary sequences, a reconstruction of the morpholithogenesis of the Onon-Torey plain in the Holocene was performed. A rhythmicity of the functioning of geomorphological systems is revealed. It manifests itself in a regular change in the dynamic phases of relief formation. Characteristics of morphological, lithological and dynamic parameters of each phase are obtained. The sequence of their change in geomorphological cycles at different hierarchical levels is determined. It is shown that the largest cycle, encompassing the entire Holocene, on the Onon-Torei plain is most fully represented in sections of the valleys of the Imalka and Onon rivers. In eolian deposits, 1800-year cycles are especially clearly pronounced by periods of pedogenesis. A change in the conditions of aeolian accumulation in dune sections occurs every 260 years. In the mouths of the ravines opening into the basin of Lake Zun-Torei and the valley of the Builesan river, in the proluvial and proluvial-solifluction deposits of the Atlantic and Subatlantic periods, 130-year and intra-secular Brickner cycles are recorded, the duration of which is about 50 years. A regional scheme of alternation in the Holocene of extreme fluvial and arid phases with normal zonal dynamic phases of relief formation has been compiled. The horizons of fluvial genesis comprise the lower part of the sediments of the Holocene macrocycle. A strong manifestation of fluvial processes was noted in the Preboreal and Atlantic periods of the Holocene as well as in the transitional time from the Atlantic to the Subborial period. The normal zonal phase of matter integration in systems is evidenced by buried humus soil horizons. Soils aged about 8 and 6.4 as well as 1.2-1.4 thousand calendar years ago received regional formation. A tendency towards a reduction in the area of the lakes and an increase in the role of eolian processes against the background of a general aridization of the climate over the past 10 thousand years has been established. According to radiocarbon dating, sedimentation-accumulation rates were obtained. In general, the high dynamism of morpholithogenesis in the steppes of Central Asia is shown, which causes planation.

Analysis of data on the density of annual rings of conifers for the periods 1979-1993 and 1979-2006 allows us to identify patterns in the response of trees, taking into account the processes of abnormal decrease and natural recovery of total ozone content. Reconstructions of changes in total ozone content over the past 300 years along the Ural meridian according to satellite monitoring of total ozone content TEMIS (Tropospheric Emission Monitoring Internet Service project) and stem wood responses observed in data on the maximum density of annual rings of pine, spruce and larch were performed on the basis of methods of dendrochronological and spectral singular analysis, which made it possible to compare the current and past state of stratospheric ozone fields. Although changes in stratospheric ozone can play the role of a factor significantly limiting the annual growth of wood, such an approach to estimates works only in conditions of overlapping responses of trees under UV-B effects in the spectral range of 280-315 nm on stress responses from other climatic factors. Based on the results of a numerical modeling for three latitude ranges, models of maximum annual density were calculated in terms of changes in total ozone content and reconstructions of their past changes were given. The aridity of the climate and its cyclicity increase the stress effect of the ozonosphere on vegetation associated with an increase in UV-B radiation, and allow us to differentiate the responses of trees according to stressors by statistical methods. Reconstructions of total ozone content from April to September for the Ural meridian show that the level of total ozone content has not yet reached the previous historical values.