Urban protected areas in green infrastructure of Khabarovsk City
Urban protected areas (PAs) are important elements of the city’s green infrastructure that are being formed to support their sustainable development. The purpose of the work is to identify the main trends of the PAs functioning in the city of Khabarovsk. Geobotanic, forest taxation, cartographic methods were used in this research. Using the example of the oldest city park, Dynamo Park, some ecosystem services were evaluated. The total area of PAs occupies 1.5% of the Khabarovsk territory. The system of Khabarovsk PAs includes 29 objects of regional and local importance, which are differentiated into 7 categories: natural sanctuaries that are valuable on regional and local scale, parks, recreational areas and complexes, city squares and protected natural objects. The development of PAs in Khabarovsk is influenced by the rapid growth of urbanization, overall unfavorable environmental situation, high natural and anthropogenic risks, residential demands and expectations to arrange the most comfortable urban environment. The problems of formation of the urban PAs system are determined as lack of proper authorities, stable fundings and suitable investment planning; insignificant area for protected objects; uneven objects distribution within the city boundaries; the disparity of protected objects; low representation of natural landscapes despite the short termed area development; loss of stability and self-regulation as well as loss of biodiversity; multifunctional use of the protected objects territory. The perspectives of developmental increasing for certain parts of specially protected natural areas and expanding the range of their categories would be determined by reserving more of the urban lands. The results of the research could be applied to the improvement of urban development planning, municipal management.