Changes in the geography of industrial sectors associated with new industrial construction in Russia in the post-Soviet period are revealed. The features of the territorial structure of modern industry, manifestations of its inertia and dynamism, primitivization and growth of volatility, deepening of specialization and strengthening of the complexity of territorial units are considered. The influence of foreign economic conditions on the spatial structuring of Russian industry has increased. The mining involves in the turnover the deposit of the resources demanded in the world market, and the exploitation of resources for domestic consumption is reduced. Mining of mineral resources is moving to more remote and environmentally sensitive areas with more severe natural conditions. The new manufacturing industry discovers two vectors of primary orientation: the capital and the seaside, primarily to the Baltic, Azov, and Black seas’ coasts. Industrial new buildings are mainly localized outside regional centers, a significant part of them are in small towns. A new phenomenon has appeared on the industrial map of the country–“village industry.”

The article is devoted to the study of the dynamics of settling on the example of the settlement pattern of the German states over a bicentennial period. The substantiation of the relationship between changes in the level of urbanization and a change in the fundamental characteristics of settlement pattern is presented. The development of settlement pattern under the influence of patterns explained by the central place theory is considered in detail. The interdependence of the territorial growth of central place systems and the spread of new transport modes is investigated. It is shown how self-organization of settling leads to changes in the structure of central place systems. So, at the beginning of the 19th century there were over 20 small systems on the lands of German states, corresponding to the central place theory with K = 2 and K = 3. And at the beginning of the 20th century, when the share of the urban population reached 50%, there are 5 central place systems in the German Empire, covering the entire territory of the country and corresponding to K = 3 and K = 4. This was accompanied by an unprecedented growth in the railway network. In the second half of the 20th century 2 independent central place systems with K = 5 in independent GDR and FRG are formed. Finally, by the beginning of the 21st century, the formation of a single central place system throughout the country happens in a short time after the unification of Germany. Such a central place system, corresponding to K = 6, demonstrates very high isostatic equilibrium values when more than 90% of the population is concentrated in cities and urban agglomerations.

The structure of settlement pattern of African Americans in three large United States’ urban agglomerationsAtlanta, Chicago, and New York–was analyzed. The neighborhood of territorial cells (census tracts) was considered. Original method of spatial correlation analysis based on two variables (the number and the share of African Americans) was used. The problem of cartographic distortions related to disproportions of population density was solved. Key features of structure of African Americans’ settlement pattern in urban agglomerations were revealed. The level of concentration is higher in core cities, but in Atlanta the difference is not very big. Areas of concentration tend to be continual over core city borders. Specific structure of African Americans’ settlement pattern was formed in each city. In Atlanta, the structure is monocentric, in Chicago it is quasi-monocentric, and in New York it is polycentric.

The article is based on a comprehensive approach that includes joint examination of reducing agricultural land, increasing share of small and abandoned villages, and expanding new recreational potential of rural areas around Moscow and Moscow oblast. Statistical indicators for Russian federal subjects and municipal districts, as well as satellite images used in the article give a multi-scale and fractional picture of the land use shrinkage which, in recent years, has been more and more clearly repeating the historical process of spatial development, but backwards. Agricultural production is shifting to areas with better natural conditions, including those seen at the intra-regional scale. The trend of concentration in the suburbs, where agriculture takes advantage of accumulated investment, labor resources, sales opportunities, and development of infrastructure, is gradually changing to development in areas with better natural conditions, sometimes remote from cities. At the same time, the population continues to concentrate in large cities and suburbs of regional centers, promoting the shrinkage of populated space. Calculations by municipal districts for the period from 1990 to 2017 confirm these divergent trends. The conclusions are illustrated by maps for the territory of Central Russia, compiled with the help of satellite images that show cultivated and unused agricultural land, as well as the spread of abandoned and small villages. Calculations based on information obtained from maps also allow to adjust the data from statistics and to reveal the real picture of changes in rural settlement and land use. The cartographic method also revealed the possibilities and limitations of re-development of rural areas by city dwellers, including not only expanding areas of garden or dacha associations and cottage settlements, but also single dacha residences in depopulating villages.

The article systematizes methods for studying modern and paleodenudation rates and summarizes the published data on the paleodenudation intensity obtained using ¹⁰Be and a set of methods for studying lake sediments for mountainous areas of different regions of the world. It has been shown that currently the most studied territories in terms of assessing paleodenudation rates are the European Alps, Tibet, the Rocky Mountains, and the Andes. Paleodenudation rates determined for river and lake catchments in various parts of the world vary over a wide range in the interval 2–3240 m/10⁶ years. Similarly to the regularities revealed for modern denudation, there is a high correlation between the paleodenudation rates and the catchments slopes. Nevertheless, the local landscape features of specific river basins and their changes during the Holocene determine the spatial variability and dynamics of changes in the denudation rate over time. The role of human activity intensifies and leads to a 10 to 100-fold increase in the denudation of mountainous areas, primarily within the foothills and low mountains.

The changes in the chemical and mineral composition of bottom sediments and waters of the Omutnaya River (the element of the Omutnaya–Kirghizka–Tom–Ob river system) during the main phases of the water regime in 2018–2019 within the planned Tugan placer deposit (ore minerals—ilmenite and zircon) have been studied. Geochemical parameters were estimated using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry method. It was obtained that the spatiotemporal changes in the gross contents of chemical elements are generally interrelated with their migration forms. General increase in the concentrations of substances in suspended form is predominant and noted in spring floods, with dissolved—in the winter low-water period. Changes in the chemical composition of bottom sediments (fraction up to 1 mm) during the year and from the source to the mouth of the river due to the influence of local geological and hydrological factors are weaker than the corresponding changes in the chemical composition of river waters. Based on the studies, it was shown that the maximum concentrations of ore elements within the halos of placer deposits are most likely under conditions of a relatively stable (geologically) decrease in the intensity of water exchange.

The ecological situation deterioration in the cores of economic development in the second half of the 20th century was replaced by a multidirectional environmental trends in the macroregions of the World in the first decades of the 21st century. Interregional and cross-country shifts in the environmental situation are closely linked to transformations in the geography of the World economy. The post-industrial structure in the highly developed countries has ended the direct relationship between economic growth and its environmental costs. Environmentally positive trends in these countries are determined by economic and social factors. The countries of the world’s Semi-Periphery have become hotbeds of catching-up industrialization, to which the main focus of environmental problems on the planet has shifted from the countries of the Center of the World economy. The increasing complexity of the relationship between economic growth and its environmental consequences at the turn of the century indicates the beginning of a qualitatively new stage in the development of the World economy and the environmental situation on the Earth. In the coming decades, the environmental situation in the World will become spatially more complex, becoming more and more mosaic, possibly marking the beginning of a global geo-ecological transition of the entire World economy.

The Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) concept is a result of the development of global experience in assessing land degradation over the past 40 years. The concept is worked out to harmonize different national methods for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and targets’ indicator 15.3.1–“proportion of land that is degraded over total land area.” The paper reviews the results of land assessment for Russia using LDN concept approaches, first calculated for individual regions (subjects of the Russian Federation) using the Trends.Earth GIS module. This module uses global databases to interpret three main proxy indicators: land cover dynamics, the dynamics of productivity, the dynamics of soil organic carbon stocks. Using “one out all out” principle, the Trends.Earth calculation for the whole Russia’s territory shows the proportion of 12.3% of degraded lands, which is a very averaged indicator for a country with a high variety of socioeconomic and physical-geographical conditions. The variation in the proportion of degraded lands calculated by this method ranges from about 63–67% in the Rostov and Volgograd oblasts to less than 1% in the Amur, Kaluga and Ivanovo oblasts. Considering the multidirectional trends in land quality change the “LDN index” is proposed for the development of the concept. It means the difference between the share of “improved” and “degraded” lands within a certain territory. The results of calculations should be considered as indicative, they will be specified as the LDN approach is developed and adapted for the territory of Russia.

An integral assessment of natural and climatic conditions of important national economic project–construction of Elegest–Kyzyl–Kuragino Railway–aimed to development the resources of Tuva Republic and increase its level of connectivity with other Russian regions and neighboring countries is presented. Assessment of difficult natural and climatic conditions is required for competent construction and successful operation of the railway in the future. Climatic parameters such as absolute maximum and minimum air temperature, anomalies of precipitation amount and wind speed, maximum snow depth, as well as geomorphological phenomena and processes are considered. Based on the comparison and analysis of various cartographic and other materials, construction area zoning according to probability and intensity of dangerous natural processes and phenomena–climatic anomalies, seismicity, avalanche hazard, and some other slope processes–was carried out.

The methodology of comparative assessment the fire-fighting capability of different forest types based on processing of thermal infrared imaging Landsat TM data and surface temperatures of forest landscapes with different bioproduction characteristics received on that basis is reviewed. This methodology has been applied to modal geosystems of Baikal-Lena Nature Reserve located in water protection zone of Lake Baikal. The opportunity to use surface temperatures for the assessment of fire-fighting role of different forest types is based on the equation of heat balance (R) of the Earth surface as the sum of heat of evaporation (i.e. a stream of latent heat) and turbulent flow from underlying surface. Thermal values were received by interpretation thermal infrared images and reflect the degree of the emission of obvious heat by a landscape. The more obvious heat flow emissions, the less latent heat flow in form of transpiration and physical evaporation from vegetation canopy and more near surface temperatures values. The values of surface temperatures and NDVI and NDMI indexes were analyzed and information about registered hot spots due to extremely hot summer periods from years 2011 till 2017 was applied to identify more vulnerable forest types between modal geosystems of Baikal-Lena Nature Reserve. Most fire vulnerable forest landscapes coincide with intermountain depressions valleys, lowlands, bottom of intermountain basins, submontane uplands and smooth hillsides. Those have different degree of waterlogged areas with islands of frozen rocks and low values of phytomass. These nature complexes are more fire-dangerous in periods of long droughts due to lower transpiration potential and less influence on micro- and mesoclimat as compared with forest on unfrozen rocks.

Based on the analysis of the daily discharges for all active and recently closed hydrological posts at the small and medium-sized rivers of Central Yakutia, it was found that the mean annual runoff and its variation coefficient significantly vary although precipitation and evaporation values are relatively stable in space. Precipitation of previous years largely influences the river runoff formation of the current year. Small-sized rivers have a delayed runoff response to rainfall compared with the larger rivers of the region at the yearly and monthly time scale. The higher the proportion of alas-type type, that has many thermokarst lakes and depressions, the lower and less stable runoff (the variation coefficient is higher, the runoff duration is shorter). The higher the proportion of slope-type terrain, the higher the mean annual and maximum daily river runoff, as well as the longer runoff duration. The mean annual evaporation correlate with the share of the slope-type terrain. Many thermokarst depressions, that are typical for the alas-type terrain, cause a low flow presumably due to the absence of water discharge of thermokarst lakes and their local catchments into the river and increased evaporation from the lake surface. It was shown that the landscape factor has leading role in the runoff formation of the small and medium-sized rivers in Central Yakutia.

The article is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the prominent Russian geographer Veniamin Petrovich Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky (April 8, 1870–February 10, 1942) and re-designated the key moments of his scientific formation, the most important of which is “Circle of Geography” concept. Semyonov-TyanShansky developed the concept in 1913, and it determined the main milestones of scientist’s evolution (this “Circle” he would like to have written on its tombstone). His unpublished text “About the missing elements in the adopted system of dividing geography into mathematical, physical, economic and political ones” (dated April 21, 1937) is brought in the scientific discourse for the first time. The article formulates the main directions of posthumous perception and high appreciation of the geographical heritage of Semyonov-TyanShansky by his scientific contemporaries and descendants, shows the continuality in relation to him of the theoretical and geographical work of B.B. Rodoman. The necessity of the critical edition of works of Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky, which would include both his main published (“The Region and the Country”), and not published (“Geographical Laws. Experience of the Higher Geography”) works is discussed.