The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Sciences 21 (2018) 139–147

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The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Sciences

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Research Paper

Spatial modelling for natural and environmental vulnerability through

remote sensing and GIS in Astrakhan, Russia
Komal Choudhary a,⇑, Mukesh Singh Boori a,b,c, Alexander Kupriyanov a
a
Samara State Aerospace University, Samara, Russia
b
American Sentinel University, CO, USA
c
Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This research work presents vulnerability mapping with land use/cover change detection in Astrakhan
Received 3 August 2016 city Russia. This study identifies, assess and classify vulnerability using landscape pattern from multidis-
Revised 20 April 2017 ciplinary approach based on remote sensing (RS) and geographical information system (GIS) approach. To
Accepted 24 May 2017
identify vulnerability we used following thematic layers: land use/cover, vegetation, soil, geology and
Available online 31 May 2017
geomorphology in ArcGIS software. According to numerical results vulnerability classified into five levels:
low, reasonable, moderate, high and extreme vulnerability by mean of cluster principal. The results indi-
Keywords:
cated a large presence of area with moderate vulnerability (54.62%). All potentially polluted lands
Land use/cover
GIS
showed more than half of their areas as moderate (54.62%) and reasonable vulnerability (33.56%) regions.
Remote sensing In the study area encroachment, population growth, industrialization and governmental polices for envi-
Vulnerability ronmental protection were found to be the major factors that caused the main changes. This study is
helpful for decision making for eco-environmental recovering and rebuilding as well as predicting the
future development.
Ó 2017 National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-
nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction plants increase their output. The food industries plants produce
over 13% of all output. The city stands on 11 island of the Caspian
Astrakhan city locate in southeastern Russia and the adminis- depression, on the bank of the Volga River close to the area where
trative center of Astrakhan Oblast state. It is the area of high envi- it flows into the Caspian Sea. However, some cities have shown
ronmental sensitivity zone. The climate of Astrakhan is mostly that they have the potential to be active parts of Russia’s economy
continental, semi-arid climate with cold winter and hot summers. (Boori et al., 2015a). Moreover, its landscape, climatic conditions,
Astrakhan is one of the driest cities in European Russia. It is this infrastructure, industrial situation, depopulation, less connectivity,
even distribution of rainfall and the relatively low annual temper- forest and agriculture productions and so on are the main cause to
ature that cause the city to fall under this climate category as identify natural and environmental vulnerability to make the bal-
opposed to an arid climate. Astrakhan is rich in fuel and power ance in between physical factors, human activities and economic
complex, Natural Gas, brimstone, fishing industries and food. The processes (Kok et al., 2016).
fuel and power production are most important production in Rus- Presently remote sensing and GIS techniques are the powerful
sia. Gas and brimstone production about 70% of the Russian market tool to investigate, predict and forecast environmental change
and the Russian market is largest brimstone exporter in the world senior in a reliable, repetitive, non-invasive, rapid and cost effec-
market (12% of the world market) (Xavierdasilva et al., 2001). Com- tive way with considerable decision making strategies (Amiri
mercial fishing industries were developed, but due to decrease of the et al., 2014). This research work uses a new approach by integrat-
catch, the production is reduced. Fruits and vegetable processing ing the above mention potential impacts for vulnerability assess-
ment. Analysis can help to solve the multidisciplinary problems
such as most or least vulnerable regions, their comparing, in un-
Peer review under responsibility of National Authority for Remote Sensing and
assessable and harsh climatic conditions (Bai et al., 2012). In this
Space Sciences.
⇑ Corresponding author. research work we use geology, geomorphology, soil, bare land, veg-
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Choudhary), [email protected] etation and land use scenarios for vulnerability assessment
(M.S. Boori), [email protected] (A. Kupriyanov). (Khosravi et al., 2007). In this context, the objective of this study

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrs.2017.05.003
1110-9823/Ó 2017 National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
140 K. Choudhary et al. / Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 21 (2018) 139–147

is: (1) build a model of spatial distribution of natural and environ- Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) for 2000 and 2007, Oper-
mental vulnerability through remote sensing and GIS; (2) knowing ational land Imager (OLI) for 2015.
the parameters used to obtain clarity of vulnerability; (3) knowing
the level of vulnerability in different parts of the study area. 3.2. Image pre-processing
Vulnerability is a function of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive
capacity. Where potential impacts are a function of exposure and The method of LULC change detection and analysis was per-
sensitivity Therefore, vulnerability is a function of potential formed using a series of processes including data acquisition, data
impacts and adaptive capacity. Where exposure components char- pre-processing, supervised classification and post classification.
acterize the stressors and the entities under stress; Sensitivity Pre-processing image was performed to extract significant infor-
components characterize the first order effects of the stresses, mation from satellite data (Boori et al., 2016a). Image pre-
and adaptive capacity components characterize responses to the processing is the initials processing of the raw data and normally
effects of the stresses. These measures can be quantitative (e.g., involves processes like geometric correction, image enhancement
precipitation variability, distance to market) or qualitative (e.g., and topographical correction. In the first step the earned data were
political party affiliation, environmental preservation ethic). stacked into composite images. The projection transformation was
Another slightly different view favored by the hazards and disas- carried out and assigned the UTM WGS-84, projection (Yabuki
ters research community is that adaptive capacity consists of two et al., 2011). A Trimble hand-held GPS with an accuracy of 10 m
subcomponents: coping capacity and resilience. Coping capacity was used to map and collect the coordinates of important land
is the ability of people and places to endure the harm and resili- use features during pre- and post-classification field visits to the
ence is the ability to bounce back after exposure to the harmful study area in order to prepare thematic layers.
event, even if the people and places suffer considerable harm. In
both cases, individuals and communities can take measures to 3.3. Image classification
increase their abilities to cope and bounce back; again depending
on the physical, social, economic, spiritual and other resources Land cover classes were typically mapped from digital remotely
they have or have access to (Saaty and Vargas, 1991). sensed data using some sort of supervised, digital image classifica-
Another basic issue in this analysis work is to assign weights to tion (Romero et al., 2013). The overall objective of the image clas-
each factor according to its relative effects of factors considered in sification procedure is to automatically categorize all pixels in an
the vulnerability in a thematic layer. The analytic hierarchy pro- image into land-cover classes or themes and the maximum likeli-
cess, a theory dealing with complex technological, economical hood classifier quantitatively evaluates both the variance and
and sociopolitical problems (Saaty and Vargas, 1991), is an appro- covariance of the category’s spectral response patterns whenever
priate method for deriving the weight assigned to each factor. The it classifies an unknown pixel. This is why it is considered to be
degree of membership within different levels of different indices one of the most accurate classifiers – it is based on statistical
was integrated using weight and the total degree of membership parameters. The accuracy of these classified maps was checked
for different thematic layers was used to calculate the whole study using the GIS tools and overall classification accuracy of the study
area natural and environmental vulnerability. The application of area was more than 90% for all three dates. Supervised classifica-
subjective weightings on the one hand gives us some indication tion was performed here using ground checkpoints and digital
of how the relative importance of different factors might vary with topographic maps (Young, 2010).
context and can also tell us how sensitive vulnerability ratings are An accuracy assessment for the supervised land use/cover clas-
to perceptions of vulnerability in the expert community (Romero sification was for the 2015 image by using ArcGIS. Each and every
et al., 2013). point had specific color tone and the pixel value which was recog-
nized by the software itself when the data sets were trained during
supervised land use/cover classification. All the randomly gener-
2. Study area
ated points were then identified by the user and assigned in differ-
ent classes. This process was done for the three supervised
The study area is located in the Astrakhan city, Southeastern
classification images (2000, 2007 and 2015). The correctly identi-
Russia. Astrakhan is in the Volga delta, which is rich in sturgeon
fied points were considered as classified values. An Error matrix
and exotic plants. The city lies on two banks of the Volga River,
and Kappa statistics were also generated from this reference and
close to where it discharges into the Caspian Sea. The city coordi-
classified data from the report section of ArcGIS software. In the
nate is in between 46°200 N latitude and 48°10 E longitude and
error matrix, the rows denote the categories as derived from the
average elevation is 12 m (Fig. 1). The population is 5, 20,339
classified image where columns represent the categories identified
inhabitants according to 2010 Census. The average annual temper-
from the reference values. Overall accuracy was calculated from
ature is semi-arid. Summers in the city can be hot, 40 °C (104°F)
the error matrix by dividing the sum of the entries that make major
and in winter is 3.6 °C (25.5°F). Astrakhan has some industries
diagonal by the total number of examined pixels. Kappa
like fishing, shipbuilding, engineering, oil-refining etc.
co-efficient of agreement was also calculated by using following
equation:
3. Data and methodology
Po  Pc
KA ¼
1  Pc
3.1. Data
X
r
In this research work we used primary (satellite data) and sec- Po ¼ Pii
ondary data (ground truth data) for land use/cover classes and i¼1
topographic sheets. This method yields numerical data that cannot
be equated directly with particular physical effects. It does, how- X
r
Pc ¼ ðPiþ  Pþi Þ
ever, highlight areas where the various effects of sea level rise. i¼1
The ground truth data were collected were using GPS (Global Posi-
tioning system) for the year of 2007 and 2015 (Boori et al., 2016a; Here
Yabuki et al., 2011). The specific satellite images used were Landsat r = the number of rows in the error matrix.
 K. Choudhary et al. / Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 21 (2018) 139–147 141

Fig. 1. Location map of the study area in Astrakhan, Russia.

Pii = the proportion of pixels in row i and column i. order to determine qualitative of the changes for the periods of
Pi+ = the proportion of the marginal total of row i. 2000–2015 (Boori et al., 2015b).
P+I = the proportion of the marginal total of column i.

3.5. Data analysis

The area was classified into following six main classes (Table 1):

All multi-spectral and temporal data were georeferenced based

3.4. Land use/cover change detection on topographic sheets with ArcGIS 10.2 software. In this study area
to improve the quality of research we used different band ration,
In the Fig. 2 the method was applied to compare and analyze image enhancement techniques and principal component and
the LULC maps that finally emerged as a result of visual interpreta- supervised classification.
tion and subsequent classification. Change detection describes Thematic maps of geology, geomorphology, soil, vegetation and
changes in the two satellite image for the same area. In this land use/cover were prepared from Landsat ETM+ and OLI ima-
research work three date data (2000, 2007 and 2015) were used geries. The weight of landscape units based on (Tricart, 1977;
to identify the changes in the study area. This classification of ima- Barbosa, 1997) concept (Table 2). The weights of a landscape unit
gery from each individual year, a multi-date, post-classification, indicate the importance of any factor in relation to others
change-detection was used to determine changes during two inter- (Barbosa, 1997). In natural vulnerability all thematic layer give
vals for 2000–2007 and 2007–2015. The post classification same weight but in environmental vulnerability all thematic layer
approach provides ‘‘from-to” change information. Classified pairs were given different weight based on their sensitivity or effective-
of two different decade data were compared using cross-table in ness in the study area (Grigio et al., 2004).
The degree of vulnerability for all units was range from 0.0 to
Table 1 3.0 (Table 3). The vulnerability ranked as extreme, high, moderate,
Classes delineated on the basis of supervised classification. reasonable and low vulnerability. The weights of compensation
indicate the importance of any factor in relation to others
Sr. Class name Description
No. (Xavierdasilva et al., 2001; Ahmed Medjahed, 2016), as can be seen
in the formula below for natural vulnerability map:
1. Settlements Residential, commercial, industrial, transportation,
roads, mixed urban ½ðTheme 1Þ þ ðTheme 2Þ þ ðTheme 3Þ þ ðTheme 4Þ þ ðTheme 5Þ=5
2. Agriculture Areas cultivated with annual crops, vegetables or fruit
3. Forest Small trees and shrub vegetation area except for
vegetation
Environmental vulnerability we use following Formula:
4. Water/Ice Permanent or temporary water body, Indigirka river
0:1 X ½Theme 1 þ 0:1 X ½Theme 2 þ 0:1 X ½Theme 3
and its mouth to the Arctic sea in frozen and unfrozen
condition þ 0:1X ½Theme 4 þ 0:1X ½Theme 5
5. Barren land Unfertile and rocky land, not useful for agriculture
6. Mangroves Land whose soil is saturated with full of moisture either Theme 1: Geomorphology map
permanently or seasonally, so such areas are covered Theme 2: Geology map
either partially or completely by shallow pools of water
Theme 3: Soil map
142 K. Choudhary et al. / Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 21 (2018) 139–147

2000 2007

0 20 40 80 120 160
Kilometers

LULC2015
Class
Agriculture
Barren land
Forest
Mangroves
Settlements

2015 Waterbody

Fig. 2. Land use/cover status of the Astrakhan, Russia; (a) in 2000, (b) in 2007 and (c) 2015.

Table 2 six classes: agriculture, barren land, forest, mangroves, settlements

Stability values of landscape units. (Tricart, 1977). and water body. The green color represents forest, gray color bar-
Unit Pedogenesis/morphogenesis Relation Value ren land, and red color settlements, yellow color shows mangroves,
Stable Prevails pathogenesis 1.0 brown color shows agriculture and blue color shows water (Fig. 3).
Intermediate Balance between pedogenesis and morphogenesis 2.0 All land use/cover maps were compared with reference data, which
Unstable Prevails morphogenesis 3.0 was prepared by ground truth data, sample points and google
earth. Over all classification accuracy was more than 90% for all
Theme 4: Vegetation map dates.
Theme 5: Land use/cover map Results shows that vegetation (forest, agriculture and man-
groves) has been most dominated class in study area for all three
Vulnerability was divided in following five natural and environ- dates. Settlements of the study area was less than 2% of the total
mental vulnerability classes: study due to extreme cold and sever climate conditions. Since
2000 to 2015 water, settlements and mangroves area were little
1. Low vulnerability: less than or equal to 1.00; bit variate (Fig. 4). These land use/cover change variables from
2. Reasonable vulnerability: 1.1 to 1.5; 2000 to 2015 were mainly caused by natural and manmade activ-
3. Moderate vulnerability: 1.51 to 2.00; ities and climatic conditions.
4. High vulnerability: 2.1 to 2.50 Table 4 shows both positive and negative land use/cover
5. Extreme vulnerability: greater than or equal to 2.51 changes in the study area. Since last 15 years only 2007 area has
been decrease from 1323.01 km2 in 2000 to 854.99 km2 in 2015
4. Results which accounts for 4.72% of the total study area. In the same time
other classes such as settlements, vegetation and water increase
4.1. Land use/cover classification respectively
In first half from 2000 to 2007, the major change was in bare
Land use/cover maps were derived from supervised classifica- land and mangroves. Bare land was increase 1.92% and forest
tion of satellite image. The satellite image was categorized into was decrease 7.30% of the total study area. From 2000 to 2007 total
 K. Choudhary et al. / Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 21 (2018) 139–147 143

Table 3 vulnerability area are the safest area in the study area, which is
Weight table to each unite in a thematic layer. under some part of vegetation and bear land (Jayanth and Ashok
Thematic maps/classes Vulnerability grade levels Kumar, 2016).
Land use/cover
Forest 1.8 4.2.2. Environmental vulnerability
Agriculture 1.5
Its map is more sensitive than natural vulnerability. In environ-
Barren land 1
Mangroves 2 mental vulnerability around 54% area under the moderate vulner-
Settlements 3 ability zone but high and extreme vulnerability is higher than
Waterbody 0.5 natural vulnerability (Chen et al., 2014; Boori et al., 2016b). Here
Vegetation 6.11% area under high vulnerability and 0.15% under extreme vul-
Mangrove 2 nerability. Reasonable vulnerability 7.03% and low vulnerability is
River 0.5 32.71%. Sensible vulnerability shows in barren land and some part
Agriculture 1.5
Bare soil 1
of vegetation and low vulnerability is shows in sea, river and water
Dunes 1.7 bodies (Fig. 5). Maximum study area has been under moderate vul-
Forest 1.8 nerability, which is present in vegetation and close to costal line. In
Urban area 3 this study area high vulnerability is presenting the river and
Water 0.5
extreme vulnerability is having in coastal line and river.
Ocean 0.5
Soil
Alluvial soil 3 4.3. Land use scenarios in vulnerability assessment
Chestnut + Solonetz soil 1.9
Chestnut soil 1.6 Natural and environmental vulnerability is most easily associ-
Podzol 2
ated with types of land use and ecosystem like food production
Sands 2.7
Ocean 0.5 can be directly related to agricultural land use, shrimp farm, salt
and fruit industry, fiber or timber production to forestry and crop-
Geomorphology
Costal trays 2 land and energy production to the area used for bioenergy crops
Dunes 1.7 and oil and natural gas exploration, costal and industrial area. In
River plains 2.5 the land use change scenarios, reductions in agricultural land are
River 0.5 an effect of intensification of production in optimal regions. Hence,
Ocean 0.5
Urban area 3
total food or energy production or exploration availability will not
decrease. Nevertheless, decreasing regional production does have
Geology
Alluvial 2.5
consequences for consumers, because regional products are associ-
Eluvium and diluvium of massive rocks 2 ated with variation as well as traditional foods or other produc-
Eluvium of massive-crystal rocks and sandstones 1 tions. Furthermore, regionally produced food or energy is
Marine saline 2.6 frequently associated with high quality and safety standards. A
Ocean 0.5
more limited choice of productions, mass-produced in optimal
Lithspecs 3
locations will be seen as negative impacts by parts of society.
The actual ecosystem service provision, in crop yield, timber or
energy increment, greatly depends on biophysical growing condi-
settlement area was increase from 21.87% and water was reducing tions. However, in order to compare ecosystem services across
5.19%. Bare land, forest and mangroves were decrease. the study area, differences caused by inherently different environ-
The results indicated that from 2000 to 2007, agricultural area ments were removed using the stratification. Therefore, for the
1490.07 km2 was stable but 120.10 km2 area converted from forest vulnerability concept used here, the land use types form appropri-
to agricultural (Table 5). In the same time period 988.57 km2 man- ate indicators for ecosystem service provision (Boori et al., 2016b).
groves area was stable but 1123.65 km2 water body was encroach-
ment by mangroves. Maximum stable class was water body, where 5. Discussions
5023.86 km2 areas were stable from 2000 to 2015.
Vulnerability maps demonstrate the great fragility of natural
4.2. Vulnerability area, supported by the intense action of coastal processes and eco-
nomic activities in the region. The analysis of geological and geo-
Natural and environmental vulnerability maps are shown rela- morphological units mapped to indicate that the region is
tionship in between landscape and vulnerability and able to tackle strongly influenced by the disorderly occupation of tidal flats, river
answers such as comparing of different types of vulnerability zones estuarine, mangrove areas by the industrialization and harsh cli-
in the study area and their causes. mate conditions. The mangrove ecosystem in this region is in much
lower proportions compared with those observed in other adjacent
4.2.1. Natural vulnerability estuarine systems; this can be explained by the degradation of
Map show that maximum area in safe zone as 54.62% area in mangrove due to the growth of human activities in the vicinity
moderate vulnerability and 33.56% area in reasonable vulnerability of the estuarine system. The activities of mining in the region cre-
zone, which shows that around 85% area of the total study area is ate instability of natural resources.
safe zone. Around 6.05% area goes in high vulnerability which is In addition, with the excessive consumption of natural
really need proper management. The low vulnerability area is resources and the gradual increase in population, some prominent
5.62%, which is present in sea, river and water body area. The environmental problems need to be solved urgently. Among them,
extreme vulnerability area is 0.15% of the total study area, which deforestation and forest degradation are the major environmental
is close to water bodies. High vulnerability area is close to costal and ecological issues in the study area. A substantial amount of for-
line. Maximum vegetation area and close to river basin zone under est has been lost due to the conversion of forest to farmlands, high
the moderate vulnerability zone. Low vulnerability and sensible grading, industrializations and other logging practices due to
144 K. Choudhary et al. / Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 21 (2018) 139–147

Vegetation
Class
Agriculture Soil
Bare Soil Class
Dunes Alluvial Soils
Forest Chestnut + Solonetz Soil
Mangrove
Chestnut Soil
Ocean
Ocean
River
Urban area
Podzols

Water Sands

Geomorphology
GeologyA
Class
Class
Costal Trays
Alluvial
Dunes
Eluvium and deluvium of massive rocks
Ocean
River Eluvium of massive-crystal rocks and Sandstones
River plains Marine saline
Urban area Ocean

LULC2015
Class
0 40 80 160 240 320
Agriculture Kilometers
Barren land
Forest
Mangroves
Settlements
Waterbody

Fig. 3. Vegetation, soil, geomorphology, geology and land use/cover map.

market demand. Despite the high levels of current effort in forest levels, leading to an imbalance between humans and their environ-
conservation, degradation of forests caused by unsound exploita- ment. Inappropriate land use has generated a huge area of sloped
tion is still a serious threat. farmland, vegetation destruction and soil loss, leading to gross
In addition, soil erosion has also seriously affected the sustain- deterioration of the environment.
able development of the environment in the study area. Currently, An important goal of environmental assessment is to provide
this area is increasing at a rate of 500 km2/year. Deforestation is assistance to policy makers and practitioners in environmental
the chief cause of soil erosion and the adverse geology and climatic protection. To protect and maintain the ecological environment
conditions intensify the erosion. in those areas, a population control policy might be needed and
Moreover, the southeastern Russia is one of the main unman- some regulations such as ‘‘convert slope farmland into forest or
aged regions of Russia with economic decline and poor environ- pasture” and laws (e.g. ‘Environmental Protection Act’, ‘Land Act’,
mental awareness. Over the years, with population increase, ‘Forestry Act’, ‘Grassland Act’, etc.) could be established and imple-
demand for food, fuel and timber has exceeded local production mented. Areas of higher ecological vulnerability should be
 K. Choudhary et al. / Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 21 (2018) 139–147 145

Fig. 4. Land use/cover for Astrakhan, Russia in 2000, 2007 and 2015.

Table 4
Area and amount of change in different land use/cover categories in the study area during 2000 to 2015.
2000 2007 2015 2000-07 2007-15
Class Area % Area % Area % Diff. % Diff. %
Agriculture 2685.32 14.81 4104.88 22.64 5519.75 30.44 1419.56 7.83 1414.87 7.80
Barrenland 1658.17 9.15 2005.68 11.06 1841.04 10.15 347.51 1.92 164.64 0.91
Forest 4233.95 23.35 2910.94 16.05 2055.95 11.34 1323.01 7.30 854.99 4.72
Mangroves 2521.43 13.91 2996.45 16.53 2758.90 15.22 475.02 2.62 237.55 1.31
Selements 703.78 3.88 725.65 4.00 745.23 4.11 21.87 0.12 19.58 0.11
Water 6329.08 34.91 5388.13 29.72 5210.86 28.74 940.95 5.19 177.27 0.98
Total 18131.73 100.00 18131.73 100.00 18131.73 100.00

Table 5
Land use/cover change matrix showing land encroachment of the study area.
2000-2007 AGRICULTUR BARENLAND FOREST MANGROVES SETTLEMENT WATER Total
Agriculture 1490.07 320.37 120.10 487.35 116.22 148.12 2682.24
Barrenland 38.83 1612.52 0.00 0.00 17.75 0.00 1669.10
Forest 1657.33 77.39 2081.44 383.89 39.66 5.82 4245.53
Mangroves 552.81 13.04 681.79 988.57 53.53 205.81 2495.56
Selements 296.52 206.37 13.87 16.64 170.32 7.21 710.93
Water 72.40 0.00 6.10 1123.65 102.35 5023.86 6328.36
Total 4107.96 2229.68 2903.31 3000.11 499.84 5390.83 18131.73

2007-2015 AGRICULTUR BARENLAND FOREST MANGROVES SETTLEMENT WATER Total

Agriculture 3341.47 104.01 145.34 208.30 302.06 10.82 4112.00
Barrenland 354.76 1736.33 0.55 0.00 85.71 0.00 2177.35
Forest 732.81 0.83 1518.69 566.39 87.65 0.00 2906.37
Mangroves 594.96 0.28 383.32 1500.57 37.72 477.91 2994.76
Selements 147.01 12.76 11.37 31.07 218.29 77.66 498.16
Water 336.17 0.00 1.39 448.23 16.09 4641.22 5443.10
Total 5507.17 1854.21 2060.67 2754.56 747.51 5207.61 18131.73

protected over all others, for moderately vulnerable areas, inte- Human migration due to the water and industry project itself must
grated small watershed management should purposefully focus also be noted. Ecological protection measures must be adopted to
on sustainable utilization of natural resources, water and soil and prevent soil erosion, prevent and control pollution, and to protect
sustainable protection of the environment. water, air and soil quality during emigrant movement and settle-
In addition, it should develop ecological agriculture and indus- ment within the study area.
try combining traditional and modern practices to realize the coor- However, strengthening environmental protection alone with-
dinated development of both the environment and economy. In the out alleviating socioeconomic and environmental ignorance can
areas immediately surrounding the Volga River, the importance of only be a temporary measure. Therefore, it is necessary to address
environmental protection should also be emphasized because of its the problems of socioeconomic and raise public environmental
significant geographical position. In addition to increasing vegeta- awareness as well as scientific understanding. Generally speaking,
tion coverage, enhancing the capacity for soil and water preserva- proper protection of the ecological environment of the study area
tion and strengthening controls on nonpoint pollution, the would be significant not only for the protection of water resources,
establishment of special ecologically functional reserves, such as the ecological system and biodiversity in Southeaster Russia, but
the river national wetland nature reserve, is a matter of priority. also for social progress, economic development and improvement
146 K. Choudhary et al. / Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 21 (2018) 139–147

Natural Vulnerability Classes Environmental Vulnerability Classes

Extreme Vulnerability
Extreme Vulnerability

High Vulnerability High Vulnerability

Moderate Vulnerability Moderate Vulnerability

Reasonable Vulnerability Reasonable Vulnerability
Low Vulnerability Low Vulnerability

Fig. 5. Natural and environmental vulnerability map.

in standards of living, national prosperity of the water source areas Acknowledgements

and the region at large.
This data work is financially supported by the Russian Scientific
Foundation (RSF), grant no. 14-31-00014 ‘‘Establishment of a Lab-
6. Conclusions oratory of Advanced Technology for Earth Remote Sensing”.

It is observed that study area has experienced various land use/-

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