STUDY OF DESERTIFICATION OF THE TERRITORY OF NORTHERN CASPIAN REGION IN THE WESTERN SUBSTEPPE ILMENS ZONE OF THE ASTRAKHAN OBLAST'' USING REMOTE SENSING
The article describes the process of creating map-schemes reflecting the change in the water mirror of the western substeppe ilmens (lakes) of the Volga delta area on the territory of the Astrakhan oblast'. With the help of the analysis of Landsat images, the data describing the situation for 1977, 1988, 2001, 2015 were obtained. The fact of decreasing the area of the water mirror from 1988 (716.2 km2) by 2015 (628.4 km2) years to 87.8 km2, which is 12.2 percent was noted. Using the program MapInfo was constructed a series of map-schemes reflecting the changes in the situation for the considered period of time.