Lake Ladoga Region: human impacts and recent environmental changes

This paper presents a landscape-ecological analysis of Ladoga Region, a 30 000 km² territory around Lake Ladoga, which is the largest lake in Europe. The Region includes the contact zone between the crystalline bedrock of Baltic Shield and the sedimentary rocks of the East European plain, and the transition from Boreonemoral to Southern Boreal (Taiga) forest vegetation; it is characterized by abundance of lakes. The Region is divided into 17 discrete landscape areas that are classified in 6 groups.The author uses the landscape-dynamcal approach to the analysis of recent (from 2–3 to 40–50 yr) environmental changes in the region, caused by human activities: forest felling, fires, peat excavation, agriculture, recreational development etc. The following processes are observed: vegetation successions after clearcutting and selective logging; effects of forest fires on the spreading and conservation of pine forests; consequences of peatland drainage; landscape effects of collective farming and gardening; forest succession from pine and deciduous tree dominance towards spruce dominance (observable in all landscape regions); natural vegetation succession on former Finnish arable lands (two types of scenarios: forest succession or development of sedge meadows).