More than 6 million hectares of land are systematically exposed to wind erosion,
and in years with dust storms – up to 20 million hectares. The country's land fund has
a steady tendency to deteriorate also under other qualitative indicators (salinity,
redeemability, etc.). Intense agricultural use of land leads to a decrease in soil fertility
due to their recession (especially chernozems), loss of lumpy-granular structure, water
permeability and aeration capacity with all environmental consequences. The greatest
consolidation have soils of the western regions of Ukraine, the smallest – the northern
regions (Polissya and Northern Forest-steppe).
Thus, large areas in the structure of the Ukrainian land fund are occupied by
soils, which are characterized by unsatisfactory properties (washed, deflated, saline,
etc.) – these are degraded and scanty soils. According to the calculations, the area of
such soils of arable land exceeds 6.5 million hectares (20% of the area of arable land),
and direct annual losses (that is, the difference between the value of the gross product
and the costs of its obtaining) reach an average of 66.5 UAH / hectare or in general in
Ukraine – about 400 million UAH.
The total area of land that needs to be preserved in Ukraine is 1.1 million
hectares, 644 thousand hectares are degraded, 435.4 thousand hectares are
unproductive and 11.9 thousand hectares are technically contaminated lands. During
2010, 2.2 thousand hectares of land were conserved; During 2011 – 2.3 thousand
hectares of land; During 2012, 2,5 thousand hectares of land were conserved, of which
1.3 thousand hectares – by afforestation and 1.2 thousand hectares – by landing. During
2010, 3.9 thousand hectares of non-productive lands were improved in Ukraine, in
2011 – 1.9 thousand hectares and in 2012 – 2.1 thousand hectares. In general, 269.1
thousand hectares of unproductive land are required to be improved [13].
The analysis of the condition of agricultural lands by features that affect the soil
fertility shows that in 1995 compared to 1990 the area of saline soils decreased by 61.2
thousand hectares, acidic – by 1078.5 thousand hectares, depleted – by 318.3 thousand
hectares, wetlands – by 197.0 hectares, deflationally dangerous – by 395.7 thousand
hectares. At the same time, during this period, the area of saline soils and saline soils
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