ИСТИНА

The most critical issue in multiscale landscape studies is the quantitative evaluation of contributions from each scale level to spatial variability of landscape attributes. The most commonly used concept that relates pattern to process in landscape ecology, the so-called patch-corridor-matrix model, perceives the landscape as a planimetric surface. The need to include vertical dimension to landscape pattern models requires consideration for the role of topographic and geological structures. Determining the right neighborhood size is a major focus of current multi-scale modeling. To develop this idea we argue that the statistically significant relations between a set of correlating soil-vegetation properties and spatial pattern of relief in the higher-order geosystem indicate the present-day or former-time process that governs spatial heterogeneity. Hierarchical levels are not postulated a priori but are induced based on evaluation of linkages between the properties of the focus unit and spatial emergent properties of embracing higher-order geosystem. Geosystems of different rank orders are generated by processes acting at different space and time scales. Soil and vegetation can reflect constraints from the higher-order geosystem by certain groups of attributes, and not necessarily by the whole set of attributes. Each attribute can receive signal from several rank-orders of geosystems simultaneously. The group of attributes governed by the same higher-order geosystem form partial geocomplex that indicates manifestation of a single ecological process. The main focus of the research is the determination of scale levels required to make planning decisions for sustainable multifunctional land use. A series of examples of recommendations for forestry, agriculture and nature protection based on our studies in the taiga zone in European Russia is provided.