Intraregional migration in modern Russia plays a crucial role in the implementation of people’s life plans. It also contributes to spatial configuration changes. Every second registered resettlement within Russia occurs within the borders of the regions. However, nothing is known about intraregional migration, except for its total volume and role in changing the population of individual municipalities. The statistical information collected by the authors on long-term intraregional migration for 1265 municipalities in 39 regions of Russia (51.4% of the country’s population) for 2017 made it possible to generate arrival, departure, and net migration matrices for each region. This made it possible to analyze the intraregional migration flows and intraregional redistribution of the population between regional centers, suburban municipalities, and regional periphery. The analysis revealed that the population movement between regional centers, their suburbs and other municipalities in all intraregional migration approximately corresponds to their share in the population. All types of municipalities are equally involved in migration. There is an intensive migration exchange between regional centers and their suburbs. Regional centers are not only inferior to the suburbs in terms of the intensity of migration growth: 80% of regional centers lose their population in the migration exchange with their own suburbs. In general, the redistribution of the population within the framework of intraregional migration in almost all the studied regions contributes to an increase in the concentration of the population in the agglomeration zone formed by regional centers and their suburbs. In some regions, there is another “zone” of population concentration, as a rule, much smaller: the sub-centers represented by large cities located at a considerable distance from regional centers. They form their own zones of positive net migration with the nearest peripheral municipalities. In most cases, this migration allows sub-centers to only compensate for the migration outflow to other regions of the country or to their own regional centers.

Many aspects of the functioning of the transport network and its impact on the territory socioeconomic development depend significantly on transport network morphology. In particular, the network morphological features are the basis for network effects, which can lead to significant changes in transportation costs (both downward and upward) with minor modifications of the network. The article is devoted to the analysis of factors that are most important for intercity transport network morphology and mathematical description of the mechanisms of their influence. It is shown that the key factor is the location of network vertices in space. Also, a two-parameter family of models is proposed for generating realistic networks based only on information about their vertices spatial location. The proposed model implementation is demonstrated on the example of the intercity highway network of Belarus. Optimal parameter values were selected for this network. It is shown that the resulting model is close enough to the original network.

Studies have shown the importance of supplementing the system of indicators of natural and climatic factors used to regionalize the territory according to the conditions of human activity with indicators that take into account the impact of extreme climatic events. This will allow to consider adverse factors of climate extremes unfavorable for the life of the population and to develop adaptation and mitigation measures. The methodology and map “Zoning of the territory of the Russian Federation according to the natural conditions of life of the population” for the current climate (2001-2010) were refined. We used reanalysis data from the WATCH project with a spatial resolution of 0.5° x 0.5°. The addition of the methodology with the indicators of growing climate extremeness indicators made it possible to take more fully into account the regional peculiarities of natural discomfort, especially for mountainous regions, marshy territories of Western Siberia, and southern Russian regions experiencing desertification. The result of considering extreme events was the complication of the configuration of the discomfort zones boundaries. The resulting map better reflects the landscape features of the territories, including for places with special climatic conditions (mountains, marshes, arid regions) and can be used to assess the living conditions of the population at the level of regions and municipalities.

The approach to the political-economic delimitation of the geographical space of Russia is considered. It fits into the strategy of the eastward turn of Russia. An important place of Asian Russia in this space is determined. Five possible variants of identification of Siberia’s territory are considered: economic, general geographical, federal, physical-geographical, and hydrographic, with the general geographical variant being preferred. It is suggested that the composition of Northeast Asia should include six countries: the northeastern segments of Russia (Eastern Siberia and the Far East), the northeastern and, partly, eastern and central segments of China as well as Mongolia, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea and Japan. The delimitation of the western boundary of the macroregion along the western boundaries of Eastern Siberia and Mongolia, and of the southern boundary along the southern watershed divide of the Huang He River basin is substantiated. The delimitation of geographical space of Northeast Asia is supported by the integrated sea and river basin structure, according to the basin concept of natural resource use. An important stage was the idea of establishing the Scientific Center (Association) for Research in Northeast Asia as suggested by Chinese geographers and the establishment of the Scientific Center for Problems of Transboundary Interactions in North Asia and Northeast Asia in the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in spring 2020. Comprehensive atlas mapping of Northeast Asia by efforts of geographers of all macroregion’s states would be one of the nearest-term objectives of collaborative research.

Increased attention to the quantitative assessment of the modern denudation of mountainous territories is due to the significance of the relief transformation within these territories and the key role of the material formed in the process of denudation of the mountains in the total volume of sediments transferred from land to the World Ocean. Significant progress in, first of all, remote sensing techniques for studying the rates of individual exogenous processes and denudation in general, which has occurred over the past decade, contributed to the significant quantitative data increase related to the dynamics of relief transformation. This was enabled by two factors: a significant increase in the accuracy of digital elevation models created using remote sensing methods and the simplification of the processing of the data obtained. The article summarizes the published results and systematizes the methods for studying modern land denudation. It is shown that the combined usage of a set of direct observation methods and remote sensing methods allows the most detailed characterization of space-time changes in the relief at various scales of the studies. About 52% of land denudation products are formed on slopes with inclinations >15%. For the remaining territories in the mountains, the rates of denudation are determined by a different combination of a set of factors: seismotectonic activity, meteorological characteristics, lithology, and anthropogenic load. The maximum cumulative effect of these factors is achieved in the basins of small rivers. It is due to the optimal combination of the above factors that slightly less than one third (6.8 billion tons) of the total volume of sediment supplied from land to the world ocean is formed due to the sediment yield of small and medium-sized rivers of the western sector of the Ring of Fire of the Pacific Ocean.

In the process of formation and development, landscapes undergo different stages and create their succession. In many cases, the vegetation is considered as the first sign and also the most important component that determines the change and succession of landscapes. Based on the system approach, the results of the study over the past 20 years show that the secondary ecological succession of landscape is an attribute and a basic characteristic of the tropical monsoon landscapes in Vietnam for about half of last century. Characteristics of natural factors, components and human factors decide the direction of secondary ecological succession, the length of landscape succession periods. After all the determinant tropical monsoonal nature covers the secondary ecological succession of landscape by regulating human behavior in landscape formation and tectonics, particularly at the level of kinds and facies. They are theoretical and practical bases in the study and design of landscapes, at the same time as the scientific basis for forecasting the developmental direction of landscapes in the future.

Studies of paleosols buried under earthen archaeological monuments (mounds/kurgans) for the purpose of reconstructing the paleoecological conditions of previous epochs are of great interest. This work aims to study soil evolution and climate dynamics during the Bronze Age based on the study of soils buried during several stages of earthen mound construction within one large kurgan in the southern steppes of the Kuban-Azov Plain, Russia. The kurgan-1 in the Beysuzhek-9 kurgan cemetery of the Bronze Age, situated in the Korenovsky municipal district, Krasnodar krai, consists of three earthen mounds made at different times. The soils buried under three mounds of the kurgan are in close vicinity from each other and have similar lithology and geomorphic position. They form a chronosequence representing three time slices. The paleosols were buried sequentially from the center to the periphery of the kurgan. The height of the kurgan is about 4 m that ensures good preservation of the buried soils. The research is based on the comparative analysis of morphology, micromorphology, and analytical properties of three paleosols buried under different constructions in the kurgan and surface soil. Also, the palynological analysis was performed for the uppermost layers (0-5 cm) of three paleosols. Reconstruction of paleoclimatic conditions based on paleopedological study showed that during the construction of the kurgan the region’s climate gradually changed towards an aridity increase. During the construction of the third kurgan structure (the Catacomb culture of the Middle Bronze Age, the 21st—16th centuries BC) the climate was mostly arid. Palynological analysis confirmed this conclusion. During the construction of the kurgan, in plant community, which was described as the southern forest-steppe overall, the percentage of grass plants increased markedly, and typical steppe species appeared in the Catacomb culture time only.

Larches form light rings on 18 study sites at the Siberian forest-tundra on 4000 km long profile. The chronologies of the light rings were built for the period provided by meteorological observations (1944-1992). One group of common years with light rings was found for area of Western Siberia and the western part of Central Siberia. The second group of common years is confined to the eastern part of Central Siberia. The third group is in Eastern Siberia. The formation of light rings is associated with a low temperature of June, July, and August. Differences in the climatic signal of larch light rings from different geographical regions of the Siberian Subarctic have been shown. Temperatures of the end of the growth period (August) have the main influence on light ring formation in Western Siberia, and of the beginning of the growth period (June)-in Eastern Siberia. Differences between temperature responses of light ring chronologies due to June temperature increasing correspond to the increase in continental climate from west to east in Siberia. Revealed clusters of light ring chronologies have similar signal and divide the Siberian Subarctic into five large areas. These five areas are consistent with the areas of tree-ring chronologies.

The proglacial Lake Kucherla (Kucherlinskoe) in Altai contains annually laminated bottom sediments (glacial clay), which makes it possible to build accurate age models using layer counting (varve chronology). Age models (core dept-age of the sediment layer) were verified by isotopic data (Cs-137, Pb-210 and C-14) and analytical microstratigraphy techniques based on the use of scanning X-ray fluorescence analysis with synchrotron radiation beams (micro-XRF-SR). Time series of more than 20 rock-forming and trace elements were constructed over the entire core depth of Lake Kucherla bottom sediments. Comparison of geochemical data with regional instrumental meteorological observations in the interval 1940-2016 allowed us to identify climate indicators and build transfer functions-the annual air temperature as a function of the elemental composition of bottom sediments. The correlation coefficient for the average annual temperature is +0.59, which is a significant value (n = 76, p = 0.99), indicating the presence of a stable linear relationship between the variations of the meteorological parameter and the composition of bottom sediments formed under the influence of external weather and climate conditions. Using average 10-year values significantly increases the correlation coefficient (+0.84) and reduces the reconstruction error to ±0.52°C (for a 95% probability). By approximating the transfer function to the entire sampling depth, a reconstruction of the regional temperature change over the time interval of the last 1400 years was constructed with an estimated error of reconstructed parameter. A comparison of the reconstruction with the data of regional studies and global reconstructions for the Northern Hemisphere shows the presence of general trends and extremes and minimal discrepancies in time scales and reconstructed temperatures.

This article presents the results of the study of narrow pine tree-rings (Pinus sylvestris L.) of the belt forests (south of Western Siberia) in the steppe zone for the period from 1661 to 2019. In the analysis 19 tree-ring chronologies obtained from living trees and historical wood of old rural houses have been used. Narrow tree-rings in 75% of all chronologies have been noted for 2012, 2003, 1996, 1991, 1980, 1974, 1963, 1910, 1896, 1888, 1812, 1795, 1786, 1752, 1748, 1695, 1690 and 1688, which can be defined as regional pointer years. The increase in the frequency of formation of minimum radial growth in the second half of the 20th century, as well as in the second half of the 18th-early 19th centuries has been distinguished. The minimum number of narrow rings falls on the end of the 17th century-the beginning of the 18th century. Drought in the spring and summer period (especially in May) has been observed in the years of narrow rings formation in almost 100% of cases. Also significant is the deficit of precipitation in the preceding autumn-winter season. It has been established that the maximum concentration of pine growth minima falls on the periods of dominance of southern meridional circulation epochs.

The article provides a comprehensive assessment of the water resources of Russia, considering the river runoff, as well as the waters of lakes and reservoirs. The assessment indicates that, with their total large quantity, they are very unevenly distributed and used over the territory and in time. Water resources for the federal subjects of the Russia are estimated. Maps of specific water availability for the federal subjects have been drawn, areas with low water availability have been identified. The recent changes occurring with water resources under the influence of anthropogenic factors and the effectiveness of their modern use are analyzed. A significant decrease in water consumption has been revealed to date compared to 1990, when it was the highest. The pollution of river and lake waters is considered. It is shown that the anthropogenic load on Russia’s water resources is generally lower than the global average, and a number of indicators of water use and water resources condition is better. A significant decrease in specific water consumption in relation to GDP in recent years has been revealed. However, in Russia there are still large volumes of unproductive water consumption, many rivers and water bodies are polluted. The hydroecological and water management situation is unfavorable in a number of regions, especially in the North Caucasus, in the lower reaches of the Volga and Don rivers. A scenario assessment of possible water consumption in the federal districts of Russia at the level of 2030-2035, combining scenarios of economic development and specific water consumption, is given. It is shown that the most acceptable scenario is one that assumes moderate economic development and a further decrease in specific water consumption. Ways to minimize the negative consequences of anthropogenic impact on water resources are outlined.

The center of Moscow has a lengthy and complex evolution. One of its characteristics is a dense network of underground communications of different ages (including manifolds of small rivers). Comparison between the “Leveling plan of the Moscow city” (1888) and the topographic map of Moscow (1984) doesn’t show significant changes of the city center’s relief whose absolute level’s rise hasn’t exceed 0.6 m at an average. Studying small underground rivers, such as Neglinnaya, Presnya, Chichera and Zolotoy Rozhok reveals that since the late 19th century till present time, anthropogenic changes have reduced the density of the drainage network nearly to zero and enlarged the subhorizontal surfaces. Geomorphologic processes have ceased in small urban river valleys on the surface, but suffusion-subsidence phenomena, flooding and deformation of buildings and structures intensify around rivers hidden in collectors, which causes significant damage to the urban economy. The structure and morphometry of watersheds has been simplified, and a significant part of their area has become impermeable. Therefore, despite the reduction in the slope of the terrain, flow velocity, power of the streams, and their erosive potential increased. A threat of rainfall floods still remains.

The article provides brief information about the International Conference “Geopolitical and Historic-Geographic Problems of the Black Sea Region”, organized by the Institute of International Relations of Moldova in cooperation with the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IG RAS), the Russian Geographical Society and the Moldavian Historic-Geographical Society, June 5, 2019 in Kishinev, Moldova. The conference presented the results of the current and long-term work of scientists from the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation, as well as the preliminary results of the comprehensive expedition of the scientists from IG RAS to Moldova, conducted from May 26 to June 6, 2019. The reports presented at the conference clearly illustrate the wide range of current geopolitical and historic-geographical problems of the region. They are of interest to a wide range of geographers, political scientists, sociologists, historians, archaeologists, cultural scientists, and other specialists dealing with the problems of regional studies and, in particular, the Black Sea region.

Biographical essay about the famous Soviet and Russian human geographer S.B. Shlikhter worked near 30 years in the Institute of Geography of Russian Academy of Sciences. He was born in Moscow in 1931 and graduated from Moscow State University in 1954. He has been the specialist in the field of transportation geography, infrastructure geography, economic geography of the World Ocean, economic integration of European countries. The first two decades of his creative life have been devoted to the studying of the peculiarities of transport location in foreign countries in the Institute of complex transportation problems at the USSR’s State Planning Commission (Gosplan). He died in Munich in 2010. The list of the scientific publications of S.B. Shlikhter is given.