Assessment of the degree of conditionality of the levels of development of the territory by natural factors

The complication of the nature of interaction between society and nature, the increasing changes in nature and society, the predominance of non-linear dependencies in their interaction and internal development at the present stage, make the discussion about the limits relevant once again, along with non-deterministic (postmodern) approaches to solving geographical problems, in terms of using strict, countable methods of analysis and the “outdated” deterministic approach. Despite the criticism of environmental determinism in postmodern conditions, it seems that the potential of its application has not been exhausted. The aim of the study is to quantify the impact of “simple” linear processes in the system of relations between nature (zonality) and society (levels of development of the territory). For this purpose, the geographical latitude of the Russian regions and the level of development of their territory, calculated as the sum of the normalized values of the density of infrastructure, population and GRP, were chosen as markers. The results of the study show a rather significant, though not absolute, dependence of the probabilistic characteristics of the selected parameters on the geographical specificity. As a result of the calculations and interpretation of the obtained results, it was found out that for large flat areas and coastal areas, the development of the territory has a pronounced and demonstrable zonal character. The deviations of the results are related to the effects of mountainous terrain, the scale of aridization, and agglomeration effects. On the basis of the above, it has been established that there are no zonal patterns for the Ural, Northeastern and East Siberian regions, and other factors have a decisive influence on the distribution of regions.

environmental determinism, new environmental determinism, development of the territory, latitude of the area, zonality, aridization, agglomeration effects, mountain