The Department of Erosion and Soil Protection has developed the main scienti c directions - «Assessment of erosion processes in soils of various bioclimatic zones», «Study of the basics of sustainable land use» and «Ecological and economic assessment of soil and land degradation». It is proposed to develop both existing areas of scienti c research with a certain adjustment of their names and problems («Analysis and modeling of erosion processes in soils, including in the context of climate change», «Development of the concept of sustainable land use in the context of food security», «Ecology, economics and socio-demographic features of land use in the context of climate change and soil degradation»), as well as new directions that have some research history at the department - «Development of principles of soil protection», «Development of methodological foundations of land reclamation». e necessity of creating a holistic concept of soil protection is considered in particular detail. is concept should include both the formulation of legal (legislative and regulatory-methodological) principles of soil protection, and the de nition of criteria for assessing soils under which their protection can be carried out, and the development of soil protection systems ( rst of all, from the manifestation of erosion processes) in various bioclimatic and administrative-territorial conditions.

The Department of Soil Erosion and Conservation has developed the following main scientific areas: “Assessment of Erosion Processes in Soils of Various Bioclimatic Zones,” “Study of Fundamentals of Sustainable Land Use,” and “Ecological and Economic Assessment of Soil and Land Degradation.” It is proposed to develop both the existing areas of scientific research with a certain correction of their names and problems (“Analysis and Modeling of Erosion Processes in Soils, Taking into Account Soil Erosion under Climate Change Conditions,” “Development of the Concept of Sustainable Land Use in the Context of Food Security,” and “Ecology, Economics, and Sociodemographic Features of Land Use under Conditions of Climate Change and Soil Degradation”) and new areas that have some research history at the department “Development of Principles of Soil Protection” and “Development of Methodological Foundations of Land Reclamation.” The necessity of creating a holistic concept of soil protection is considered in particular detail. This concept should include the formulation of legal (legislative and regulatory–methodological) principles of soil protection, as well as the development of assessment criteria under which soils should be protected and the development of soil protection systems (primarily systems protecting from erosion processes) under different bioclimatic and administrative-territorial conditions.

On the basis of testing various varieties of ecological and economic assessment of lands on the territory of the Russian Plain, their systematization was carried out both from the standpoint of the ratio of profi t and loss associated with nature management, and the attribution of these varieties to the areas of economic science that diff erently determine the role of human economic activity in ecological systems.Th e predominance in the Russian Federation of those techniques and methods of ecological and economic assess-ment, which are associated with the defi nition of damage/ harm from pollution, degradation and cluttering of land plots, is shown. Th e results of the approbation of the «Methodology for determining the extent of damage from soil and land degradation» (1994) for agricultural farms located in various regions of the Russian Federation — in the Volgograd, Belgorod, Kaliningrad and Penza regions are presented. It has been established that the damage caused to agricultural lands in all the studied regions is due to the low level of agrotechnical measures carried out here — mainly insuffi cient application of organic and mineral fertilizers, liming of acidic soils (for example, in the Kaliningrad region) and gypsum of saline soils (in the Volgograd region).Methods where the comparison of income and losses is carried out (methodology Y. von Braun, adjusting the value of land based on information about their ecological condition), are the most diffi cult to implement, but the most promising from a practical point of view. Th e results of the adjustment of the cadastral value of the lands of the West-ern Administrative District of Moscow based on the calculation of the indicator of loss of ecological quality of soils are presented. In some cases, the decrease in the cadastral value of land plots was 71% compared to the initial value.It has been established that the assessment of environmental damage refers to the direction of «environmental economics», the assessment of ecosystem services of soils and lands, the adjustment of the value of land based on information about their ecological condition, the assessment of environmental tax/environmental payments, — to the direction of «ecological economics», the methodology of J. von Braun and the assessment of environmental risks of pollution, degradation and littering of land — towards the direction of «green economics».

To calculate the soil loss tolerance for chernozems of the central chernozemic region, a linear modification of Skidmore’s equation was used. The soil loss tolerance values were obtained with due account for the soil type, the degree of erodibility, and the crop rotation pattern. The maximum possible value (10 t/ha per year) was obtained for a typical noneroded chernozem in all the crop rotations. Close values were obtained for noneroded leached and typical chernozems (9.6–9.9 t/ha per year depending on the crop rotation pattern). The soil loss tolerance for the noneroded podzolized chernozem was somewhat lower: 9.1 t/ha per year in the grain-herb-intertilled crop rotation and 6.3 t/ha/year in the grain-intertilled crop rotation. With an increase in the degree of the soil erosion, the soil loss tolerance decreased in all the variants of the experiment with an especially abrupt decrease in the grain-intertilled crop rotation (from 9.9–10.0 to 0.3–2.0 t/ha per year in the, respectively, noneroded and slightly eroded ordinary and typical chernozems). In the grain-herb-intertilled crop rotation, these differences were much smaller: in the slightly eroded typical chernozem the soil loss tolerance was estimated at 9.7 t/ha per year, while, in the slightly eroded typical chernozem, at 8.1 t/ha per year. The moderately eroded chernozems without the addition of manure could only be used in the grain-herb-intertilled crop rotation; the soil loss tolerance was estimated at 9.0 t/ha per year for the typical chernozem and 4.3 t/ha per year for the ordinary chernozem.

The distribution of differently eroded soddy-podzolic soils on slopes of different gradients, lengths, and aspects has been studied with the use of a quantitative parameter of slope erodibility K. The latter is calculated as a product of slope gradient in the power of 1.3 and the length of the flow line (m) in the power of 0.5. It is shown that moderately eroded soddy-podzolic soils appear on the slopes of northern and northeastern aspects with K equal to 0.4; on the slopes of southern aspect, this parameter is somewhat lower (0.24). Moderately eroded soils prevail on the slopes of northern and northeastern aspects with K equal to 0.7.

Equations were proposed for calculating parameters of detached and transported soil particles with due account for the heterogeneity of soil aggregates, the pulsation of bottom flow velocities, and the degree of aggregate destruction in shallow-water flows. These equations were applied for irrigated typical sierozem of Tajikistan.

A new equation describing the transport of sediments by waterflows in irrigation furrows was developed. The equation was verified using the results of field studies on irrigated sierozems. The absolute relative error was 9%, and the coefficient of correlation was 0.92.

A procedure was developed for calculating the size of detached and transported soil particles (aggregates), their fractional distribution, and the eroding velocities in the region of low hydrodynamic impacts of shallow flows based on the examination of pulsation of bottom velocities and soil heterogeneity in terms of aggregate composition and cohesion. The procedure was tested under field conditions for the rill erosion of soils in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Values of a quantitative index of erosion resistance (namely, the stream erosion velocity) are determined for the genetic horizons of the principal soil groups of Tajikistan. A relationship is demonstrated between stream erosion velocity and stability of soil aggregates in water, the cohesiveness of the soils, and their content of roots. It is shown that a familiar equation for stream erosion velocity, developed previously for plains soils, can be used to evaluate quantitatively the erosion resistance of the mountain and piedmont soils of Tajikistan.