Analysis of the Hierarchical Structure of Factors Shaping Landscape-Specific Ameliorative Systems in Agriculture

Abstract

This paper presents principles of investigating how the structural parts of geographical systems of different hierarchical levels influence the variability of economic and landscape environmental factors to be considered when designing landscape-specific ameliorative systems of crop farming. In addition, it describes the distinctive features of natural complexes that belong to three nodal levels of agrogeosystems’ classification, that is, agri-environment section, genus of the agricultural landscapes, and type of the agricultural landscapes in Tver oblast. It has been shown that all the studied parameters of agrogeosystems fall into three groups based on the degree of their influence on the spatial variability of factors of different orders. The first group includes crop yield, soil acidity, and the share of pastures and fallow lands in farms; the second group includes plant nutrient content in soils, waterlogging of soils, and its stoniness as well as the share of hay lands; and the third group embraces elements of the structural organization of agricultural enterprises.