Erosion–Accumulative Soil Cover Patterns of Dry-Steppe Agrolandscape, Rostov Region

Abstract

The results of a field study of the erosion–accumulative patterns of the soil cover of a key area in the zone of dark chestnut soils (Kastanozems) are presented, and the information content of multitemporal remote sensing data on the bare soil surface for its identification and mapping is analyzed. The site is located on the Millerovo–Morozovskaya inclined plain within the Don–Donetsk hilly-ridge plain, in Oblivsky district of the Rostov region. The soil cover of the key area is represented by a combination of low-contrasting soils on convex and concave surfaces within an elongated ridge and its slopes, including agro-dark chestnut solonetzic and nonsolonetzic soils, agrozems (washed away soils that have lost the middle-profile xerometamorphic horizon), and stratozems (aggraded soils). The development of this soil cover pattern is determined by a combination of mesorelief landforms and two types of soil-forming rocks. The map of the C coefficient of the multitemporal soil line reveals the heterogeneity of the soil cover related to the activity of erosion/deposition processes. In the key area, three groups of contrasting soil combinations differ significantly in the form of different variations and combinations-variations forming a kind of framework of the soil cover. Combinations of eroded and aggraded soils located between the above three groups of soil combinations significantly differ from their neighbors, but their interpretation has an increased uncertainty.