AGROECOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF LAND USE OF DRY STEPPE IN THE ALTAI REGION
Saving the optimal balance of natural and anthropogenic landscapes provides most significantly stable reception of agricultural products for the food security of the country. Agro-ecological assessment of the territory determines the correlation of main agriculturally used areas for practical use in the land reform projects and the creation of new land uses. The goal of the research is agro-ecological assessment of dry steppe use in the southernmost tip of the West Siberian Plain (in the municipal districts of the Altai Region). Objects of study is land resources locating on chestnut soils of the dry steppe in the Altai Region. Analysis of the ecological evaluation of dry steppe territory shows that four districts (Kulundinsky, Tabunsky, Nemetsky National and Slavgorodski) are ecologically unstable. The coefficient of ecological stability in this districts is under 0,33. Land use in the Klyuchevsky District correlates to changeable stable and its coefficient of ecological stability is 0,33-0,50. Land use in the Mikhaylovsky District is moderately stable. The coefficient of ecological stability is between 0,50 and 0,66. Only the Uglovsky District land is ecologically stable (the coefficient of ecological stability is above 0,67). Due to ecological instability of dry steppe in the Altai Region the current land use is ineffective, it demands cultivation of large territories and produces low output per hectare. The current land use of dry steppe districts becomes very cost-based and disrupts to get high crop yield and to raise productiveness of livestock farming. Further use of land under existing conditions will support the further and serious slowing of ecological stability of the land.