Volgograd Scientists Develop a Method for Early Detection of Soil Degradation
Soil degradation and drought affect more than 3 billion hectares of land – as much as 40% of the world’s total land area – and cost the global economy nearly $900 billion every year. Their consequences are felt by approximately 3.2 billion people.
Soil degradation often begins out of sight, with subtle declines in fertility, shifts in microbial communities and soil compaction that satellite images cannot yet detect. By the time visible signs emerge, the land has already lost some of its productive capacity. Restoring it then takes far more time and money than preventing the damage in the first place. Researchers at the Federal Research Center for Agroecology, Integrated Land Reclamation and Protective Afforestation of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS Federal Research Center for Agroecology) in Volgograd have developed a three-tier method for detecting soil degradation early, while affected land may still appear healthy.
Keeping Soil Under Surveillance
The method combines three levels of assessment. The first is satellite-based: satellites capture images of agricultural fields and reveal changes on the surface, including shifts in vegetation and emerging signs of salinization or desertification. The second involves fieldwork, with specialists surveying sites and collecting samples. The third is laboratory testing of the soil’s physical, chemical and biological properties.
All the data are brought together in a unified information model. A mathematical algorithm classifies each site into one of three categories: normal condition, potential risk or a need for preventive measures.
The method has already been tested at a farm in Volgograd Region. Researchers identified areas with soil problems and developed recommendations for restoring fertility. In some places, applying fertilizer may be enough; in others, the land should be temporarily taken out of intensive agricultural use.
Technology Without Borders
In 2022, Vladislav Romanov, a researcher at the RAS Federal Research Center for Agroecology, compared manual and automated classification of satellite images. In the test area, the automated analysis achieved an accuracy rate of 97.88%. A year later, researchers at Lomonosov Moscow State University created a digital map of land degradation across Russia. It showed that approximately 13% of the country’s territory had been affected between 2001 and 2020. MSU researchers later used neural networks to map soil salinity in the Republic of Kalmykia. They combined ground-based field measurements with satellite imagery, including data from the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI).
Meanwhile, the RAS Federal Research Center for Agroecology and Terra Tech, a company within the Roscosmos state corporation, developed a system called Opustynivaniye i yego monitoring (Desertification and Its Monitoring). Using neural networks, it analyzes satellite images and generates land-degradation maps. The project covered 14 Russian regions and produced a database of more than 550 reference observations. From a technical standpoint, the information and analytics system can already be scaled for use in other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. The new three-tier method expands its capabilities, making it possible to analyze hidden degradation processes in greater detail.
A Matter of Food Security
Approximately 123.4 million hectares of agricultural land in Russia are currently at risk of desertification. A government program to develop the land-reclamation sector and bring more land into agricultural use has been in place since 2021. By 2030, the program aims to bring 13 million hectares into production and improve the quality of more than 7 million hectares of agricultural land. Continuous digital monitoring helps identify threats before degradation takes hold. Rather than waiting for a pasture to turn into wasteland, the system can give land managers time to act – by limiting livestock grazing, using phytomelioration to restore vegetation and soil conditions, or changing how the land is used.
Desertification has already affected 28 Russian regions to varying degrees, making effective monitoring an increasingly important matter of food security. The challenge is especially pressing in southern and drought-prone parts of the country, where agriculture faces soil erosion, salinization and desertification. Other countries with large agricultural sectors and drought-prone areas face similar problems.
Preventing the worst-case scenario will increasingly depend on software that brings together diverse data sources and automatically identifies areas at risk. Services that provide information on the condition of individual fields and recommend how best to manage them could be particularly valuable. Farmers and large agricultural holdings are likely to be among the first users, since they are directly involved in food production and bear some of the heaviest costs of soil degradation.
