Potential of Applying Novel Monitoring and Management Methods to Siberian Landscapes
This chapter reviews and summarises the overall content of the book "Novel Methods for Monitoring and Managing Land and Water Resources in Siberia" The book starts with an extended analysis of water and land resources, characterising the natural conditions of Siberian landscapes, their ecosystems, crucial processes and human impacts on soil and water quality. The status of research and monitoring is characterised in another chapter, pointing both on substantial progress achieved during the past decades, but also on gaps in our knowledge. Both chapters reveal the Siberian landscapes' great potential for economically and ecologically viable business activities, but also inefficient and unsustainable land and water management practices and the decay of the rural infrastructure. Sustainable practices should be introduced soon, and this must be based on modern monitoring and management technologies. Some more studies show that thorough and innovative research and monitoring of water and land quality is provided by Siberian institutes and their leading researchers. Addressing climate change requires innovations in landscape research. Further book chapters deal with modern monitoring and management methods developed outside Siberia but having clear potential for application. We depict some highlights which could (a) lead to a significant knowledge shift, (b) initiate sustainable soil resource use and (c) trigger substantial improvement of the ecosystem status, if introduced into Siberia or applied there very soon on a wide scale. These are (1) soil and hydrological laboratory measurement methods, (2) process based field measurement and evaluation methods of land and water quality, (3) remote sensing and GIS technology based landscape monitoring methods, (4) process and ecosystem modelling approaches, (5) methods of resource and process evaluation and functional soil mapping and (6) tools for controlling agricultural land use systems such as nutrient balancing methods, conservation agriculture and their technologies. More than 15 concrete monitoring and management tools could immediately be introduced into research and practice, some of them without monetary investment. We conclude that strengthening international and national research cooperation in these fields will be a key for making novel methods operational. Agri environmental research projects should have high priority as gaps in our knowledge are particular high, and a particularly large amount of novel measurement, evaluation, modelling and management tools are available. Various tools are ready for immediate introduction into Siberian landscapes in the framework of mutual pilot projects: state of the science field monitoring technologies for soil and forest hydrology (EEM HYPROP, virtual and real lysimeters) agro ecological models and DSS (MONICA, LandCare DSS) soil and land quality classification and evaluation tools (WRB 2014, Muencheberg SQR) nutrient balancing tools, and technologies of conservation agriculture. The role of internationally linked monitoring capacities is particularly emphasised, with some existing stations established in the vast agri environmental monitoring network and others to be newly built in remote regions of Siberia and the Far East, and supported by the latest remote sensing technologies. The book contributors represent an immense innovation network which should be employed to achieve both significant disciplinary and synergetic outreach effects. This should be imbedded into more sustainable strategies aiming at research cooperation between partners from EU countries, the Russian Federation and countries of Central Asia. Maintaining the functions of great landscapes for future human generations will be the reward of those efforts.