Herman Stanislavovich Kust

Th e assessment of land degradation neutrality (LDN) is used to characterize the achievement of the UN Sustainable
Development Goal 15 (SDG), Target 15.3 — «to combat desertifi cation, restore degraded lands and soils» by
individual countries and regions. Th e article presents the calculation of land degradation neutrality for agricultural
territories of the Samara region using global indicators (dynamics of land productivity, dynamics of land cover,
dynamics of soil organic carbon) and regional ones, such as yield, erosion, content of mobile forms of potassium
and phosphorus in the soil. Th e Trends.Earth tool presented on the QuantumGIS was used to calculate the fi rst
two global indicators platform. Th e evaluation of the remaining indicators was carried out using stock data and
data from the agrochemical service. According to the results land degradation neutrality was not achieved in the
agricultural territories of the Samara region. Th e indicator of SDG 15.3.1 («the proportion of land that is degraded
over total land area») is 78,61%, and the LDN index is –57,22%. Th e main process leading to a negative LDN index
is water erosion, which leads to a decrease in the levels of indicators such as land productivity and humus content.

Despite the large number of diff erent anti-erosion practices used in the country, the dynamics of the areas of eroded
lands remains multidirectional and unstable. Th e goal of the work was to propose a methodological approach for semantic modeling of sustainable land management with a focus on anti-erosion measures, the methods for such modeling and land management in the areas prone to soil erosion in order to maintain and restore degraded lands. A variety of erosion control techniques, methods, approaches, technologies and activities described in diff erent sources, including databases on best practices, educational and scientifi c literature serves as objects of the study. Th e study was based on the integration of several working hypotheses and approaches proposed by the authors in earlier publications. Th e methodological basis of these approaches is the concept of land degradation neutrality (LDN) and the principles for assessing the «sustainability» of environmental management based on it. Using the example of several sites, methods for semantic modeling of the sustainability of anti-erosion land management are considered. These methods are based on assessing the achievement of LDN using the so-called «good» practices. For the assessment, the following parameters of the model were applied: «natural potential» (refl ecting resource potential, adaptive potential and the ability to self-recovery of land), «expanded potential» (refl ecting human improvements in natural potential and the suffi ciency of socio-economic conditions); «actual adverse impacts», including natural processes and phenomena and those caused by human impact; «potential adverse impacts», including natural and anthropogenic risks. Model parameters can be combined in the required combination and refl ect diff erent modeling tasks in order to determine the adequacy of erosion control practices, including general approaches and techniques for regional models, methods and technologies for sub-regional and local ones, specifi c activities and measures for
local models implemented for individual land plots and farms. Th e proposed method for visualizing models, based on the construction of radar diagrams, is a fl exible solution that provides opportunity to consider the suffi ciency of practices, combine them into groups, and also generalize sustainability parameters depending on the goals of modeling.