Natural-territorial complex (NTC)

On the surface of the Earth, on the continents and oceans, there is a very complex network of regular combinations of basic and derivative components that form a wide variety of natural territorial complexes (NTCs). The main provisions of the doctrine of PTC in the understanding of N.A. Solntsev, one of the founders of modern landscape science, boils down to the following:

An innumerable number of PTCs form a hierarchical, that is, subordinate system from the smallest to the most simply constructed PTC on land - facies (for example, a hillside, the foot of a mountain) to the largest and extremely complexly constructed PTC - the geographical shell.

The geographic envelope is a natural complex of the highest planetary rank, found in the singular in the solar system, and only on planet Earth.

The entire huge number of PTCs can be divided into two large groups: full, which include all other components - the earth’s crust, water, air, vegetation, fauna, and incomplete, where some of the listed components are missing, for example, water (liquid in the atmosphere), or plants, or animals, or the earth's crust (for example, under a thick layer of water in the ocean).

Landscapes

Landscape- this is such a complete PTC, in the structure of which all the main components are directly involved, starting from the earth’s crust and ending with the animals inhabiting this PTC. Landscape- This is, first of all, a specific area of ​​the earth’s surface, limited by natural boundaries. It is characterized by territorial integrity, genetic unity, uniformity of geological structure, relief, climate, a uniform combination of hydrothermal conditions, soils, biocenoses (plant groupings with animals). Examples of landscapes: the valley of the Chuya River, Lake Chany, the central part of the kolochny steppe in Kulunda, etc.

In the oceans and seas one can also distinguish natural complexes - seascapes. In the process of development, areas of the shelf are isolated, which differ in soil characteristics, algae composition, and animal population.

The natural complex of oceans and seas is called aquatorial(aqua - water).

So, landscape is a natural, genetically homogeneous territorial complex. The word is German and means “view of the Earth” land – Earth, shaft – to look.

Modern geographers believe landscape- one of the main concepts of geographical science. Landscape is a natural area of ​​the earth’s surface, divided into tracts and facies. This understanding of landscape is called territorial, (Solntsev, 1962), but some geographers use the term “landscape” only as applied to a type of nature. For example, steppe landscape, mountain landscape, etc. This understanding of the landscape is called typological. Example: NSO, left bank of the Ob River, in its upper reaches. Nature, despite its apparent monotony and dullness, is very diverse: the north is a forest landscape - subtaiga space - birch-aspen-pine forests with podzolic soils, an abundance of swamps, a moderately cold continental climate, lowland terrain; the forest-steppe of northern Baraba - with ridges, a well-developed river system, fairly fertile soils - ordinary chernozems, interspersed with meadows, peat bogs. Climate - temperate continental; forest-steppe of southern Baraba - lowlands disturbed by ridges, ridges, birch forests alternating with steppes, soils - ordinary chernozem, meadow, meadow-chernozem, many lakes and swamps, etc.

It is necessary to be able to correctly highlight each landscape, show its boundaries on the map, show the area, etc.

The economic value of landscapes varies. Geographers and landscape scientists conduct practical research for collective farms, state farms, farms, cities, planning authorities, etc. Landscape maps serve as the most reliable basis for solving many practical problems. They are successfully used in the assessment of natural resources, regional planning, in the study of natural focal diseases, for hydrological purposes, land reclamation, etc.

“Community Field” - Wheat, rye, barley, beans, oats. Application for assessment: Natural community - field. 2 points. + + + - + - - -. Tasks: Find the given answers in the table. Timofeevka, clover. Violet, dahlia, saffron, wheat, rose. Decorative (violet, rose). Legumes (beans, beans, peas). Cereals (wheat, rye, oats). Objective of the lesson:

“Natural complexes” - Local natural complexes: Large natural complexes - continents and oceans. Forest area. “Component” translated from Latin means “an integral part of the whole.” Tundra. The entire biosphere. Continents and oceans. Natural complexes. Climate. Taiga. Global. Deserts. Natural complex. Ravine, forest, river floodplain.

“Winter fun” - The main thing is not to forget your carrot nose and an old bucket on your head at home. But in our heart there is also warmth for the birds! How can we forget: They could have flown away, But they stayed to spend the winter Together with the people. Drive sideways with straight and closed legs. The main thing is to choose something more interesting. Ride with your back on your legs straight and slightly apart.

“The world around us Seasons” - Change of seasons. Lesson about the world around us, grade 2. Draw a conclusion. The earth's axis is tilted. The Earth's axis of rotation is directed towards the North Star. What is the reason for changes in living and inanimate nature at different times of the year? Author Melnikova Olga Yuryevna, teacher of Municipal Educational Institution Secondary School No. 3. Reasons for the change of seasons. Why does living nature change behind inanimate nature?

“Description of Nature” - Description of Nature. View of some area. A drawing, a painting depicting nature, as well as a description of nature in a literary work. Prepared by teacher of Russian language and literature Chemodanova N.A. "Kuanpamashskaya Public School". Plan. Snow-white carpet on the ground. Frost on bare trees. We ate in expensive fur coats.

“Natural communities lesson” - Natural communities. 2. Relationships + 0 - help do not meet are at enmity Natural communities (biocenoses) - Life General. Swamp, water. Natural Artificial Forest Park Swamp Garden Lake Pond. 2. Relationships + 0 - they help, do not meet, are at enmity. Who's the odd one out? Together. White, snow, cold.

There are a total of 14 presentations in the topic

Page 1

A natural territorial complex is a historically established and spatially isolated unity of the main components of the landscape. All the diversity of the surrounding nature is determined by the variety of combinations of natural components.  

Natural territorial complexes and their components are subject to reversible and irreversible changes under the influence of human economic activity. Many natural areas and natural objects change so much that they completely lose their resemblance to the original objects. To solve environmental problems, the landscape method is of particular importance, with the help of which it is possible to restore and reconstruct the original natural structure of the territory, to protect certain types, classes and types of PTC and their components from anthropogenic impact.  

A natural territorial complex is a natural pattern of spaces, a combination of components of the natural environment, part of natural resources (atmosphere, water, soil, vegetation, wildlife, landscapes) that form an integral material system.  

The stability of a natural territorial complex is its ability to withstand recreational loads up to a certain limit, beyond which there is a loss of its ability to self-heal.  

The objects of landscape-morphological analysis of the Earth are natural territorial complexes - historically established and spatially isolated unities of the five main components of nature. PTCs form a hierarchical system of individual units that allow for landscape-morphological analysis at various levels and landscape mapping at various scales.  

Natural-technogenic landscapes are understood as a combination of natural territorial complexes with technogenic modifications of natural complexes and technogenic new formations that completely destroyed and modified natural landscapes during the production process.  

The landscape shell of the Earth is a mosaic structure of natural territorial complexes.  

When analyzing OK, one should be guided by one general rule: natural territorial complexes with their structure and forest conditions are closely related to altitude. Therefore, their boundaries often repeat the OK horizontal lines with a certain elevation. Localities of the same type located in different parts of the landscape also often coincide in height. Therefore, when identifying, mapping and typology of areas, it is necessary to constantly note their absolute heights above sea level.  

Studying landscape units of various orders, he laid the foundation for landscape-morphological studies of the structure of natural territorial complexes. He showed that between the type of planting and the forest vegetation zone there is a hierarchical system of natural territorial units of varying size and complexity.  

When studying and mapping taiga territories, the main objects of research when solving a wide variety of practical problems should be natural territorial complexes - historically established and spatially isolated unities of the five main components of nature: lithogenic base, atmosphere, water, plants and animals, which N.A. Solntsev called complete natural unities. PTCs vary in size and complexity, that is, taxonomic rank. PTCs within themselves are relatively structurally and ecologically homogeneous formations, regardless of their rank.  

CRITICAL LOAD (of a pollutant) - a quantitative expression of the maximum load (deposition) per unit area of ​​a natural territorial complex of one or more pollutants, below which there is no harmful effect on the designated sensitive element of the environment (receptor) in accordance with the current level of knowledge.  

The fundamental novelty of the method is that the object of interpretation is not the crowns and structure of the forest canopy, but natural territorial complexes and their structure.  

This course has been taught at the St. Petersburg Forestry Academy since 1996. It consists of 16 lecture topics and gives an idea of ​​the natural territorial complexes of forests in the boreal belt of the Earth. The influence of natural components on the structure and ecological regimes of forest lands and their forest-growing effect is analyzed. PTCs of various types of plains, mountains, and swamps are considered. Students are trained in methods of landscape and environmental indicators using remote sensing and cartographic information sources. The ways of applying the methods of morphological landscape science to solve practical problems of forestry, inventory of forest resources, forest management, land and environmental management are shown.  

Environmental justification is a set of arguments (evidence) and scientific forecasts that make it possible to assess the environmental danger of planned economic and other activities for ecosystems (natural territorial complexes) and humans.  

Recently, mathematical M.L. has also been distinguished. (A.S. Viktorov, 1998), studying the quantitative patterns of constructing mosaics that are formed on the earth’s surface by natural territorial complexes that make up landscapes, and developing methods for mathematical analysis of these mosaics.  

Remember

• What is living and inanimate nature? How and why does the amount of solar heat change as it moves from the equator to the poles?

What is a territorial complex? The entire vast surface of the earth's land consists of many different areas: continents and oceans, forests and swamps, fields and cities. From a geographic point of view, what they all have in common is that these are areas of the earth’s surface of a certain size. Geographers call them territories.

Territory- this is a section of the Earth's surface with everything that is on it.

Let's look at the surrounding area. The picture we see may be different. But regardless of external differences, we can identify constantly occurring parts in it - components. These are living and nonliving bodies of nature: air, rocks, water, plants and animals. But we are surrounded not only by natural bodies. Many components of territories are created by man: houses and roads, dams and airfields.

The combination of individual parts and phenomena that make up a single whole is called complex. For geography, a single whole is the territory. All components located on it (both natural and man-made), interacting with each other, form territorial complexes.

Rice. 179. Natural territorial complex

In those parts of the Earth where nature is not touched by human activity, territorial complexes consist only of natural components. That's why they are called natural territorial complexes. This is not a simple set of components. You already know that they are interconnected and constantly exchange chemicals, water and energy (Fig. 179). Where human intervention has significantly changed nature, natural-economic territorial complexes(Fig. 180). Man-made components also interact with natural components. Tall buildings change the movement of winds; asphalt does not allow moisture to seep into the soil and prevents plant growth. In turn, flowing waters can erode roads and building foundations.

Each territorial complex has its own characteristics and develops as a single organism. If you change one component, all the others change, as well as the entire complex as a whole.

From your history course you know what role the Nile River played in the life of Ancient Egypt. Its annual floods not only brought fertile silt to the floodplain, but also washed the soil, removing various salts. When a huge dam was built on the Nile and a large reservoir was formed, the floods stopped. Silt stopped flowing into the fields, and the soils themselves became saline. People can no longer grow valuable plants on the floodplain. The reservoir itself created good conditions for the breeding of malaria mosquitoes. But it was not only the river and the people living along it that suffered. The supply of nutrients from the Nile waters to the Mediterranean Sea has decreased. This led to a decrease in the amount of plankton and the number of many marine organisms.

Rice. 180. Natural-economic territorial complex

Variety of territorial complexes. Not only the components in certain territories are interconnected, but also the territorial complexes themselves. They “communicate” with each other using winds, sea currents and rivers, traveling animals and people.

From small territories, like bricks, large ones are built. The largest territorial complex is the geographical envelope. It is continuous and covers the entire Earth. The geographic envelope is divided into smaller complexes: continents and oceans, plains and mountains, hills and river valleys, etc. Among the territorial complexes, natural zones stand out.

Natural area- this is part of the geographical envelope, which differs from its other parts in the characteristics of temperature, moisture, soil, flora and fauna.

The name of natural zones is usually given by the type of vegetation that predominates in them: zones of equatorial forests, savannas, steppes, etc.

The main reason for the emergence of natural zones is the uneven distribution of heat over the Earth's surface. Since its quantity changes when moving from the equator to the poles, natural zones replace each other in the same direction. This change of natural zones is called latitudinal zonality. However, the zones change not only in latitude. In the mountains, as they rise upward, they also replace each other, as the temperature and amount of precipitation change. The vertical change of natural zones is called altitudinal zone.

Questions and tasks

1. Give a definition of the concept “territorial complex”.
2. How does a natural-territorial complex differ from a natural-economic complex?
3. Why does an impact on one of the components of the territorial complex lead to a change in the entire complex as a whole?
4. What are natural areas?
5. Using the map “Natural Zones of the World,” name the natural zones that change from the equator to the poles.

Studying the contents of the paragraph provides the opportunity to:

Ø deepen understanding of the essence of the concept of “components of nature” and the relationships between them;

Ø study the structure, basic properties of the PTC and landscape

Natural component- this is an integral material part of nature, representing one of the spheres of the geographical shell of the Earth (lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, etc.). Natural components on the Earth's surface are presented rocks, air, surface And groundwater, soils, vegetation And fauna. Climate (long-term weather regime) and relief are not components of nature, since they are not material bodies, but reflect the properties of air masses and the earth's surface.

There are three groups of natural components: lithogenic, hydroclimatogenic and biogenic (Fig.).

All components of nature are closely interconnected and a change in one leads to a change in the others.

The closest interaction of components is characteristic of the near-surface (soil) and the nearest above-surface layer of the Earth, since it is here that all spheres of the Earth’s geographic shell (lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, etc.) come into contact. For example, the climatic features of the territory are influenced by the relief. Climate and topography influence the formation of water, soil, vegetation and wildlife. In turn, the flora and fauna are united by a system of interaction with each other and influence other components of nature. The relationships between the components of nature must be taken into account when organizing economic activities. For example, drainage leads to a decrease in groundwater in an area, and this affects soil, vegetation and wildlife, etc.

Natural components, closely interacting with each other in a certain territory, form complexes called natural-territorial complexes. Under natural-territorial complex(PTK) is understood as a relatively homogeneous area of ​​the earth's surface, which is distinguished by a peculiar combination of natural components. Based on the size of the territory, PTCs are divided into three levels: planetary, regional and local

The largest - planetary or global level of PTC is represented on the planet by a geographical envelope.

PTC at the regional level: continents, natural zones, physical-geographical countries, are structural parts of the geographical shell. Local level PTCs are represented by landscapes (facies, tracts).

The boundaries of the PTC, as a rule, are not clearly identified and the transition from one complex to another occurs gradually. On maps, the boundaries of natural complexes are drawn with lines, which are a symbol. Each natural complex has its own structure. PTC structure is a combination of natural components that form PTC.

Properties of PTC. The main property of PTC of different ranks should be considered its integrity. Integrity means a close relationship between the components of the PTC.

Another important property of the natural complex is sustainability, which consists in the ability of the PTC to return to its original state when exposed to external forces (deforestation, land reclamation, etc.).

The sustainability of natural complexes is of great importance due to the increasing human impact on nature. Crisis phenomena in nature occur when the stability and ability of the PTC to self-healing is disrupted. Sustainability is ensured by a variety of relationships between the components of the natural complex. The more complex the PTC, the more stable it is, i.e. has more opportunities for self-healing and counteraction to human economic activities.

PTCs are constantly evolving, i.e. have the following property: variability. This can be seen in the example of local complexes, when lakes become overgrown, ravines appear, forests become swamped, etc. It is believed that under natural conditions the evolution of natural complexes occurs in the direction of increasing their stability. In this regard, the main problem with anthropogenic impact on nature is not to reduce the natural stability of natural-territorial complexes.

The concept of landscape. Landscape structure . With the development of geography, the idea of ​​PTK changed. Based on the doctrine of natural-territorial complexes, a new direction has been formed - landscape science, the object of study of which is the landscape (from the German land - earth, schaft - a suffix expressing interconnection).

The landscape is a homogeneous natural formation within a natural area and reflects its main features. Landscape can be taken as the basic unit in physical-geographical zoning. To form ideas about the territory, it is enough to study it within the landscape. Each landscape is part of larger territorial geographic units.

Landscape is a relatively homogeneous area of ​​the geographic envelope, distinguished by the natural combination of its components and the nature of the relationships between them.

The landscape includes not only natural components, but also small PTC - facies and tracts that make up its morphological structure.

The simplest (elementary) complex is the facies that is characterized by the greatest homogeneity of natural components. An example could be a section of a small river valley, a hollow, a small depression, etc., which have homogeneous geological deposits and soils, the same microclimate, water regime and composition of the biocenosis.

Facies are combined into tracts. A tract is a system of facies associated with a separate large landform or watershed on a homogeneous substrate and the general direction of physiographic processes. Examples of tracts include PTK within a ravine or hill. A larger unit of the landscape is the terrain, which is a combination of tracts that are regularly repeated within the landscape. The identification of areas is determined primarily by the peculiarities of the geological structure and relief.

Anthropogenic landscapes. As a result of transformative human activity, transformed - anthropogenic - landscapes appear in place of natural landscapes.

In landscape science, depending on the degree of anthropogenic impact, there are primary natural landscapes, which are formed by the action of only natural factors; natural-anthropogenic landscapes, which are formed by the action of both natural and anthropogenic factors, and anthropogenic landscapes, whose existence is supported only by human activity. The degree of their change depends on the intensity of economic use. The greatest changes occur in the industrial, transport and agricultural use of landscapes.

Under anthropogenic landscape is understood as a geographical landscape transformed by human activity and differing in structure and properties from natural ones. Since human activities that cause the formation of anthropogenic landscapes can be purposeful and unpurposeful (unintentional), different anthropogenic landscapes are formed. There are slightly modified, modified and highly modified landscapes.

Purposeful impact on landscapes leads to their transformation and the formation of landscapes with specified parameters and functions. Agricultural, industrial, recreational, urbanized and others are formed, which are sometimes called cultivated or cultural. Under cultural landscape is understood as a territory in which, as a result of human activity, the landscape has acquired new properties compared to its previous state (Fig...).

Landscapes, over time, are characterized by changes in qualitative and quantitative parameters. Such transformations are called - landscape development. Factors causing landscape development processes are divided into internal and external. As a result of development, some landscapes can transform and disappear, while others, on the contrary, can be formed. The task of rational environmental management is to prevent unwanted destruction (degradation) of landscapes, i.e. manage landscape development.

Questions and tasks

1. What are PTCs and what natural components do they contain?

2. What does the concept of “hardware and hardware stability” mean and what factors ensure it?

3. As a result of what economic activities can the interconnections of the PTC be destroyed? Give examples.