Greenhouse gases regional distribution depending on landscape and geographical features based on space survey materials (Chechen Republic as the example)

Local and regional features of greenhouse gas emissions and absorption, contributing to the formation of their concentrations in the atmosphere, have been the main issues of the scientific climate agenda in recent years. The study region is the Chechen Republic, including 12 landscape-geographical regions and characterized by territorial diversification of land use. In the north of the region, in the semi-desert zone, pastures predominate; in the north-central and central steppe regions – arable lands and urbanized territories; the southern areas of the foothills, lowlands, midlands and highlands are mainly occupied by forests and meadow mountain pastures. The objectives of the work are to analyze the dynamics of greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide and methane) content in the atmosphere of the region and to classify the landscapes of the Chechen Republic by the level of absorption potential for atmospheric carbon. Methods: analysis of satellite images Sentinel-2, Sentinel-5P, OCO-2. It was revealed that the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the region is uneven: the maximum values are traced in the northern part, in the flat steppe and semi-desert areas with a predominance of pastures; the minimum – in the south, in the low-mountain, mid-mountain and high-mountain areas of mountain forests and meadow pastures. The maximum concentrations of methane are noted in the foothills. A stable trend of annual growth of the content of the considered greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is observed. Five classes of landscapes are distinguished, characterized by different levels of absorption potential. In the northern flat semi-desert pasture region, emission processes prevail over deposition. In the north-central and central steppe regions with a predominance of arable land and urbanized territories, an insignificant predominance of emission over absorption is noted. The balance of the emissionabsorption system in the region begins with the foothill-plain forest-steppe territories and covers the southern forest and meadow mountainous regions, where deposition processes gradually begin to prevail over emission.