The territory’s isolation and integrity are recognized by jurists as criteria for determining the municipalities’ boundaries. Analyzing the geographic studies of the innercity territory morphology, territorial identity and the local communities development potential relationship, the authors come to conclusion that these criteria are not supplied with measurement methodology. As a result the studies are limited by extreme characteristics polygons. The article proposes a methodology for assessing of intracity territories’ isolation and integrity. Considering pedestrian links as the basis of intracity municipal communications, the authors develop a methodology based on the pedestrian graph, which makes more sensitive estimates comparing with transport methods. The indicators of isolation and integrity, as well as the integral indicator are calculated for the territorial units of St. Petersburg–administrative and municipal districts. The authors come to the conclusion that intracity district’s isolation and integrity are in a weak negative relationship with each other and are set by the urban settlement and development policy. According to the integral assessment, island administrative districts and peripheral municipal districts with the 1970s large quarter buildings demonstrate the greatest compliance with the isolation and integrity principles. The authors announce a study of the territory morphology influence on the local self-government development level based on the data presented in this article.

The present paper deals with five main structural levels of channel processes and channel patterns due to disconnectivity of f luvial processes. River braiding is related to existence of point, bar, channel (island), anabranching and large distributary channels (located in the deltas of large and largest rivers). Meandering is related to sinuosity of the f low and formation of complex loop and large meanders, the dimensions of which are larger than those corresponding to the water content of the river, and the meanders of the meandering belts. Due to the instability of the straight f low, the structural levels of the straight single channel are distinguished by their size: pool hollows on the riffles, reaches between adjacent bends and segments of braided channel, sections between single branches and stretched stretch areas along the bedrock banks or in the incised channel. Each structural level is related to the previous one forming scaling sequence (middle and side channels are the basis for the formation of branches and bends, etc.), representing genetic series, although in some cases they may have a different origin (intra-floodplain intercepts, relics of delta branches, etc.). The meandering process happens over various scales in both braided and straight channels. The formation of structural levels is governed by river size, geology, effective discharges and local drivers.

Different types of water exchange across state (as of the end of February 2022), administrative and natural borders in the Don River basin are considered. The indicators of atmospheric moisture transfer and wind movement of snow, water runoff across the boundaries of forest-steppe and steppe zones and the boundaries

of individual landscapes are given. Most of the water is transported across all boundaries in the atmosphere. River runoff is only 4% of the value of atmospheric moisture transfer; 42% of the total annual runoff f lows from the forest-steppe to the borders of the steppe zone, 39% of the f lood runoff and 55–65% of the minimum summer-autumn and winter runoff. The exchange of river water between individual subjects in the Russian part of the Don River basin has been determined. There is a significant improvement in the water availability of the regions, taking into account the transit f low. The transfer of chemicals with water is considered. The features of the formation of diffuse runoff of biogenic elements in different landscapes are revealed. The results of a comparative analysis of the dynamics of the content of pollutants in the wastewater of Rostov, Voronezh, and Lipetsk oblasts for 1995–2018 period are presented. The impact of local and transit wastewater on the quality of water resources of Rostov oblast is assessed. The features of transboundary water exchange in connection with climate changes and economic activity that have occurred over the past decades are revealed. Mainly due to climatic changes, river runoff on the Lower Don has significantly decreased–by an average of 20%. The role of the surface component of runoff in the movement of water together with pollutants across administrative and natural borders has significantly decreased, while the role of the underground component, on the contrary, has increased. The ways of solving the main problems caused by transboundary water exchange are proposed.

The article analyzes the patterns of riverbanks erosion of medium and large rivers of the Ob-Irtysh rivers’ basin. They have a real and potential threat. The territory in different parts differs in the regime of water and sediment runoff under free and relatively homogeneous free conditions of channel formation (wide floodplains composed of sandy deposits). The increase in the order of rivers, which is an indirect indicator of their water content, leads to the activation and increase in the intensity of horizontal channel deformations. The geological and geomorphological conditions of channel formation (the width of the valley bottom and the inf luence of bedrock banks), along with hydroclimatic factors, affect the rate of channel displacement and their reformation. According to the conditions of river bank erosion, seven regions are distinguished in the Ob- Irtysh basin, each of which is characterized by different intensities of channel deformations and hydrological and morphological dependences that connect their indicators (rate and length of riverbanks erosion fronts) with the channel and water content of the flow. The characteristics of bank erosion (rate and the length of the erosion front) depend on the shape of the channels, which determines the hydraulic characteristics of the flow. Riverbanks erosion rates increase with an increase in the degree of development of the meanders. The water content of the river and decreases in the branches due to the dispersal of the runoff. The washout front, ceteris paribus, is longer for flat bends. The bedrock banks recede mainly due to the development of landslides and scree, provoked by the impact of the flow on them.

The article provides an overview and linguistic analysis of the main toponymic and linguistic layers of modern Tambov oblast, which in the past were inhabited by peoples who spoke Finno-Ugric, Turkic, and Iranian languages. Work on the toponymic atlas of the region should show that the population of the main geographical names in terms of their linguistic affiliation, which shows the general distribution of local peoples in the interfluve of the Tsna and the Don rivers. In addition to the Russian language, a patch of Mordovian names (Savala, Vyazhlya, Kuzhlya, Liplyai, Merlyai), associated with the time of residence in the Mordovian-Moksha corporation. The Turkic layer (Karachan, Karai, Beklemishevo, Chekmari, Taldykin Barak, Saburovka, Yakutino) is associated, among other things, with the Kipchaks (Polovtsians). The toponyms of the Iranian layer (Isorok, Kenzar, Lomovis, Kalanda, Negi) go to study the material of the Ossetian language and, apparently, reflect the period of residence in Tsna and Don regions of some unrecorded population, the search should become a mass study, not only toponymic, but also archaeological. The abundance toponyms, and above all hydronyms, occurring to the tributaries of the first, second and third orders, on the territory of the Khoper and Tsna river basins indicates the existence in the past of a population, speaking in a language close to modern Ossetian. New linguistic materials on this topic of Tambov oblast’s toponyms, presented in the article, reduce the toponymic, historical and geographical landscape of the southeast of Ancient Russia.

In the context of landscape studies and from the standpoint of the “power” theory of fine art by Gilles Deleuze (the concepts of line-strength, color-strength, composition-strength), the process of the birth of the “landscape” genre in European fine art, starting from prehistoric times and ending with the first half of the 16th century, in which the formation of the genre can be considered complete. It is shown that the landscape genre (“landscape-as-such”) was born gradually, passing through the stages of “landscape-decor,” “landscape-background,” “landscape-condition,” “landscape-participant.” The essence and features of each stage are explained. The role of individual painters who made the greatest contribution to the formation of the genre in different periods of the development of European art, from the Proto-Renaissance to the High Renaissance, is revealed. The features of the methods of depiction, artistic interpretation and representation of landscape components (geocomponents) and the landscape as a whole at different stages of the genre’s formation are shown. Particular attention is paid to the work of such masters of the Early and Northern Renaissance as Masolino da Panicale, Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Altdorfer, Augustin Hirschvogel. The outstanding importance for the development of the landscape genre in European painting of the work of Albrecht Dürer, especially his watercolors of the 1480s–1490s, is emphasized. An attempt is made to reveal the ontological specifics of landscape images, based on the theory of the existential-topological representation of geocomponents, the landscape as a whole and the place of a person in it. For this, such concepts of the philosophy of poststructuralism as “ogiva,” “faciality,” “landscapity” are used.

The article presents the author’s view on classification criteria and approaches to the unified classification of landscape complexes (geocomplexes): undisturbed natural, partially modified, completely transformed. Five criteria are substantiated: (1) features of the organization in connection with the location in geospheres; (2) the degree of transformation or natural–artificiality; (3) geographical position; (4) the period of development (dynamic state); (5) main features of the composition, structure and functioning of geocomplexes and their components. These criteria cover the existing diversity, take into account their essential properties and create the basis for a unified classification of the entire diversity of virgin and anthropogenic, natural and artificial geocomplexes. They form a completely diverse (multi-aspect and multi-level) system–a multidimensional classification space of the structural-functional approach for the classification of geocomplexes at local and regional levels. 6 classes of the 1st rank were revealed: natural atmospheric, artificial atmospheric, natural hydrospheric, artificial hydrospheric, natural lithospheric, artificial lithospheric. 28 classes of the 2nd rank are justified. A fragment of the classification of techno-natural, natural-technical and technical meso-landscapes (classes 3ed and 4th rank) is given. It is noted that the criteria considered are necessary, but not sufficient, for example, for the classification of artificial geocomplexes, the study and classification of which is an area of interaction with other technical, social and natural sciences with the leading role of geography.