SENSITIVITY OF THE RUSSIAN AGRICULTURE TO CHANGES IN CLIMATE, CO2 AND TROPOSPHERIC OZONE CONCENTRATIONS AND SOIL FERTILITY

Russian agriculture sensitivity to changes in climate, soil and atmosphere chemistry were analyzed. Calculated data are presented on crop productivity of grain crops and grasses (C₃) under arid and humid scenarios of climate taking account of one-, two-, three and four-factor natural environment impacts. All four factors under studies (climatic parameters, CO₂ and tropospheric ozone concentrations, soil degradation extent) greatly impact agriculture productivity. The effect of interaction between all considered factors on agroecosystem productivity is studied. It is established that a simple additive scheme for explaining the complex effect of some factors can be much violated. In this case, not only variations in the mean crop yield levels but also variations in the degree of crop stability have been assessed in some regions, that may be more important for determining the social-economic consequences. It turned out that the recurrence of critically very low yields in steppe regions may increase two fold as a result of global warming.