ИСТИНА

Principal results of scientific research of the Russian landscape school at the global and regional level in the second half of the XX century are connected with the development of landscape classification. The main classification units at this territorial level are the zonal type of landscapes (the term was introduced in the 1960-ies) and the present-day landscape (since the 1980-ies). At present the wide application of geospatial data allows to supplement this classification with indicators which characterize changes of the zonal types of landscapes during the last decades. This type of study is already performed for the forest-steppe zone of Russia. The development of complex geoecological regionalization became another important line of research at this spatial level. A group of methodologies offered by the ArcMap software package was used for identification of the geoecological regions of Africa. The general model was divided into three thematic submodels, namely natural factors, anthropogenic influence and the state of environment. As a result of modeling Africa was divided into 52 areas which are characterized by the same type of land cover transformation. In the areas with long and rich civilization history cultural landscapes of different stages are also used for regionalization.