Morphological structure of landscapes at oil and gas fi elds in the Orenburg Transvolga region

The paper deals with the problem of landscape structure transformation under the influence of technogenic factors associated with the extraction of hydrocarbons within the territory of the Orenburg region. Technological systems of the Rostashinsky and Zaikinsko-Zorinsky deposits are chosen as objects of study. The main goal of the research was to study the dynamics of the geosystems of oil and gas fields in order to determine the direction and degree of destructive processes. For this purpose, the coefficients of horological, typological, and entropic diversity of landscapes were calculated using the geoinformation analysis of multi-temporal remote sensing data. As a result, ten numerical indices reflecting the structure of technogeosystems and six indices of landscape differentiation (Shannon entropy measure of diversity and complexity, heterogeneity of Ivashutina – Nikolaev, Odum, Glison – Margalef and Simpson) were obtained. Analysis of the morphological structure of the technogeosystem of the Zaikinsky and Rostashinsky fields showed that their dynamics is determined by the following key factors: increasing number of facilities related to subsoil use, due to the need to maintain the level of production at the old developed field; a sharp increase in the area of highly-mosaic fallow lands, due to weed successions; quantity reduction of agricultural hydrotechnical facilities (ponds), while maintaining and even increasing the area of technical reservoirs used by the oil and gas industry; reduction in the area of forest belts and increasing number of patches due to dead wood, shrubs and self-seeding; abandonment of settlements and decreasing population in the remaining ones, which also increases the number of contours. Higher degree of fragmentation of the technogenic landscapes of oil and gas fields, with an obvious decrease in the anthropogenic load, illustrates the restoration of disturbed inter-component and intra-landscape interactions due to positive feedbacks under weakening external influences.

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