The paper discusses connections between zonal boundaries of vegetation and productivity of forest stands and some climatic parameters. It also suggests mathematical-cartographic models of these connections. The models are used to forecast changes in the boundaries of the vegetation sub-zones and of forest stands productivity in the European Part of Russia and on the adjacent areas for 2046–2065 under one of the scenarios of global warming.

Many new very important Middle Pleistocene small mammal localities of Europe were discovered during the last decades. These new data permit to divide the Middle Pleistocene geological sequences of Eastern and Western Europe and carried out the correlation between them. However, there are some difficulties connected with the incongruity of mammal appearance in different parts of Europe. In this paper we would like to discuss all these problems using Middle Pleistocene small mammal data and to present the possible biostratigraphical scheme for the whole Europe.

This paper describes the transport of bottom water from its source region in the Weddell Sea through the abyssal channels of the Atlantic Ocean. The research brings together the recent observations and historical data. A strong flow of Antarctic Bottom Water through the Vema Channel is analyzed. The mean speed of the flow is 30 cm/s. A temperature increase was found in the deep Vema Channel, which has been observed for 30 years already. The flow of bottom water in the northern part of the Brazil Basin splits. Part of the water flows through the Romanche and Chain fracture zones. The other part flows to the North American Basin. Part of the latter flow propagates through the Vema Fracture Zone into the Northeast Atlantic. The properties of bottom water in the Kane Gap and Discovery Gap are also analyzed.

An extensive land reform programme is underway, which faces many challenges unique to the socio-political context of post-apartheid South Africa. The aim of this paper is to review the extent to which agrarian land reform policy, more particularly in respect to its land distribution element, incorporates environmental sustainability principles into resultant practice and whether or not this may lead to exacerbation of land degradation problems in the country. The paper briefly outlines the key land reform role-players, the policy and implementation process of land reform, and considers these in relation to the problem of land degradation. Ongoing problems of implementation with the land redistribution programme are discussed in relation to a number of significant challenges. The paper illustrates the lack of integration of environmental planning in the land reform process generally and points to the potentially deleterious impact of land reform on land degradation.

Urban sprawl is among the most debated topics in the field of urbanism, environmental sciences, ecology, economics, and geography. As urban sprawl involves different subjects of study, this phenomenon is extremely fascinating on the one side, but very complex and difficult to analyze on the other side. For this reason, sprawl has and is attracting the interest of many researchers from all over the world, having the objective to define the nature, dynamics and consequences that the process of low-density urban expansion is having on the biophysical and socioeconomic environment. The aim of this review is to provide a brief picture on the nature of the relationship existing between sprawl and the environment with special attention to Europe. The growing environmental vulnerability of the European urban regions was discussed according to a bibliographic survey based on quali-quantitative studies. Evidence support the idea that environmental policy and regional planning should cope more effectively with the increasing vulnerability of “shrinking” urban regions to natural hazards.

South American countries still possess considerable land reserves for agricultural development. Huge areas of virgin lands and natural pastures have been converted to agricultural crops and suffer increasing pressure. Growing demand for food in the world and attractiveness for capital investment drive this colonization further deep into the regions that cannot be converted to commercial agriculture without serious negative environmental consequences. Agricultural development in these areas neither can be considered economically sustainable, as high production costs sometimes surpass revenues from the harvest. Most of the recently colonized regions in South America are those under savanna landscapes, where low nutrient availability in the soil restricts agricultural use. Understanding the problem of sustainability of agricultural development in savannas is impossible without geographical analysis. Spatial approach at different scales enables precise vision of weak points of recently established agricultural systems and helps to draw solutions to diminish their instability. The objective of this paper was to develop, with GIS tools, a geographically based analysis that could identify the spatial variation and magnitude of soil potassium, potassium uptake, potassium fertilization, and potassium balance in order to improve the efficiency of mineral fertilizers use.

DOWN TO EARTH AND ITS CURRENT PROBLEMS
(on the Results of the International Geographical Congress in Cologne, Germany, 25–30 August, 2012)

THE THIRD ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC ASSEMBLY OF THE ASSOCIATION OF RUSSIAN SOCIAL GEOGRAPHERS (ARGO)