Landscape and Geoecological Analysis of Small River Basins Within Nature Protection of Mountain Territories

DOI

10.2991/isees-18.2018.6How to use a DOI?

Keywords

basin geosystems, landscape structures, geoecology, environmental engineering

Abstract

Three large rivers of the North Caucasus, namely the Kuban, the Terek and the Kuma play a key role in water supply of adjacent steppe territories of Ciscaucasia. The mass run-off of these rivers is formed within a mountain relief. The river heads of the Kuban and the Kuma are located in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic. The landscape and geoecological research of small river basins of the republic was aimed to collect the information for further nature protection of basin geosystems of the 1-4 orders. The hierarchy, landscape structure and environmental condition of basins typical for six sublatitudinal morphostructures of the Karachay-Cherkessia were studied. The basin landscape structure becomes more complex from lowlands to highlands with the increase of altitudinal belts. Due to the global warming and the reduction of glacier lands, the water content of mountain rivers is decreasing in summer. The maximum anthropogenic load in the conditions of a mountain relief accounts for the bottom of river basins. Despite low density of the population and low level of industrial development in the republic there are local sites of surface-water contamination towards residential, tourist and recreational centers. Priority practical measures on water quality normalization were determined. In terms of their current and intended use, the small basins belong to innovative, restoration, tourist recreation and nature protection types.

Copyright

© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - P.A. Kipkeeva
AU  - Ya.V. Volosukhin
AU  - Yu.Ya. Potapenko
AU  - N.V. Shubayeva
PY  - 2018/12
DA  - 2018/12
TI  - Landscape and Geoecological Analysis of Small River Basins Within Nature Protection of Mountain Territories
BT  - Proceedings of the International Symposium “Engineering and Earth Sciences: Applied and Fundamental Research” (ISEES 2018)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 26
EP  - 31
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/isees-18.2018.6
DO  - 10.2991/isees-18.2018.6
ID  - Kipkeeva2018/12
ER  -