Remote monitoring of land in western Kazakhstan

The article presents the results of the environmental assessment of land in Western Ka-zakhstan, held by decoding high resolution satellite images. The object of investigation is Bokey Orda District of West Kazakhstan region. Decryption is performed by space images QuickBird 2013 1:50 000. Application of space images helped to define the boundaries of the main categories of agricultural land (arable land, grassland, sandy tracts, etc.), set the location of settlements, trans-port infrastructure, as well as to identify the main elements of the hydrographic network (rivers, lakes, estuaries, sors) and mesorelief (sandy hillocks, hill reduction, etc.). It was found that 48.4 % of the Bokey Orda District territory is occupied by agricultural land, 40.7 % - sandy massifs, 10.8 % of the land area are various negative mesorelief – saline depression, estuaries, bitter-salty lakes. The data on land grounds allowed assessing the ecological status of the territory at a rate of anthropo-genic stress that for lands of Bokey Orda District is 3.3 points, which corresponds to the ecological crisis. The current crisis situation is caused by overgrazing and plowing of virgin lands and is cha-racterized by strong decrease in productivity and loss of stability. Selective economic use and plan-ning of deep land improvement is suggeted. An acute need to implement large-scale sand-control works, restoration of degraded pastures and unproductive lands transfer in adaptive forest agricul-tural landscapes is established. The data on volumes of forest reclamation works to secure the shift-ing sands, held in Bokey Orda District in the period from 2011 to 2013, are presented. It is recom-mended to organize of environmental monitoring using remote sensing data, which will allow timely identification of areas, subjected to degradation processes, and to take appropriate measures to eliminate pockets of desertification in the initial stage.