Regional Dynamics of Industry, Agriculture and Population in Russia in 1990–2020: Geoecological Interpretation

Russian regions have been grouped according to the type of associated dynamics of industry, agriculture, and population for 1990–2020, which indirectly reflects the dynamics of the integral anthropogenic load on nature. The zones most severely affected by the transformation depression have been identified, which cover almost the entire European Non-Chernozem zone, southern Eastern Siberia, and the Far East. And a significant increase in loads is observed in the North Caucasus, Baltic oblasts of Russia, in the sublatitudinal area of regions stretching from Bryansk oblast to Bashkortostan, as well as in Tyumen oblast. The increased pressure occurred primarily within the steppe and forest-steppe zones, which have been most transformed by anthropogenic activity. In general, pressure on nature increases in a well-developed territory (about one-tenth of the country’s territory, where about one-third of the population lives) and decreases in a vast, poorly developed territory (about half of the territory and one-sixth of Russia’s population). A new ecologically unfavorable trend in the dynamics of loads on nature is revealed: their relative shift to coastal regions, on the recreationally attractive coasts of the Atlantic seas, vulnerable to impacts and scarce in the country, as well as the Caspian Sea. It has been established that the environmental situation is more likely to deteriorate further in the regions with a strong increase in anthropogenic pressure than it is to improve in the regions that are now leaders in terms of reducing adverse impacts.