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ISSN 2070-7401 (Print), ISSN 2411-0280 (Online)
Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa
CURRENT PROBLEMS IN REMOTE SENSING OF THE EARTH FROM SPACE

  

Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2025, V. 22, No. 4, pp. 218-235

Refining the mapping of desert and steppe ecosystems in satellite-based land cover assessments of Russia’s terrestrial ecosystems

S.S. Shinkarenko 1 , S.A. Bartalev 1 , I.A. Saigin 1 , I.E. Smelyansky 2 
1 Space Research Institute RAS, Moscow, Russia
2 ООО Laboratory “Ecoton”, Samara, Russia
Accepted: 13.05.2025
DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2025-22-4-218-235
Steppe and desert ecosystems in Russia possess high conservation value as habitats for rare species of flora and fauna, as well as significant climate-regulating potential, making their mapping and monitoring a priority task. However, most existing global and national satellite-derived vegetation cover maps either fail to distinguish steppe ecosystems from other herbaceous vegetation or rely on insufficiently representative reference data. This study aims to improve the mapping accuracy of steppe and desert vegetation by utilizing multi-temporal medium-resolution satellite data with cloud artifacts removed, along with a representative reference dataset derived from expert interpretation of high-resolution satellite imagery and selective ground-based verification. Using MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) data, we produced a series of annual land cover maps of Russia for 2001–2023 with refined delineation of steppe and desert ecosystems. Satellite-based assessments detected 41–42 million hectares of steppe and desert ecosystems annually across the country. A comparison of these results with pasture areas at the municipal district level revealed a high degree of consistency in desert and steppe biomes, where 95 % of pasture areas were correctly identified. In contrast, discrepancies were more pronounced in nemoral biomes, where mapped steppe ecosystems did not fully align with official pasture extents. These discrepancies may stem from uncertainties in land use classification, such as inclusion of meadows as pastures or mesophytic steppe variants as hayfields in land management records, as well as misclassification between meadow steppes and steppe-like meadows in remote sensing data. Additionally, in nemoral biomes, the average size of individual steppe patches was minimal, leading to a high proportion of boundary pixels. The resulting maps provide a foundation for assessing the current state of zonal vegetation in steppe and desert regions and analyzing key drivers of its dynamics.
Keywords: steppes, deserts, biomes, land cover, satellite monitoring, remote sensing
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