Historical censuses and a search for perspective farmland in the context of global climate change

Abstract

Due to global climate change, there is a gradual change in the use of farmland: some degrades in terms of traditional exploitation, while other becomes more suitable for cultivation. The study is focused on the latter, namely, on identifying those areas of the Russian Far East where climate change will have a positive impact in terms of both economic development and demographic improvement. The peculiar feature of our methodology is the use of historical data to identify areas for the most comfortable and economically feasible residence of peasants in the region. Having identified these locations and their physical and geographical characteristics, the authors have attempted to find similar conditions in areas that currently remain undeveloped, yet ready to accommodate settlers in the coming 20 years. With the beginning of the development of these territories by the Russians, it turned out that the south of the Primorskaya Oblast, the so-called South Ussuri Krai, was the most suitable area for agriculture (and for population concentration in general). Therefore, it was the settlements in this area that were taken as a sample for the analysis. The following four most important landscape characteristics of an agriculturally successful settlement have been identified – soil, average temperature for August, average precipitation for August, and elevation above sea level (up to 200 m). The authors used downscaled1 monthly climate data from the CMIP6 multimodel for GCM BCC-CSM2-MR of the SSP3-7.0 scenario for the period 2021-2040 as climate change data (this is an average, most likely scenario of global warming with due regard to partial global policy measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions). As a result, 26 still undeveloped (in terms of arable farming) and uninhabited areas were identified in the Primorye, Khabarovsk Territories and the Jewish Autonomous Region with a total area of about 1 million hectares. It is these areas that should be given a special attention when planning the region’s development; they require an additional in situ testing.