Substantiation of the reserve status of karst caves in the Republic of Crimea based on speleoresource potential evaluation
The paper presents the method for assigning of reserved status to karst caves in territory of the Republic of Crimea. The main stages of the procedure are described, including the creation of individual cave’s passport, resource potential revealing and its evaluation, and the definition of the reserved status. On the base of statistic analysis of almost 1500 caves ecological resources, 124 particulary valuable speleological objects have been revealed which pretend to be included to the natural reserve fund of the Republic of Crimea. According to the total number of caves with reserved status, the Main Range of the Crimean Mountains is leading, and the leading parts of it are Ay-Petri (41 caves), Karaby (26), Chatyrdag (14) and Dolgorukovsky (14) karst massives.