ST. PETERSBURG, August 17. /TASS/. Scientists classified soils in the Russian Arctic cities and towns by organic matter's concentrations. The survey will be used for climate change forecasts, press service of the St. Petersburg State University said.

"A group of the St. Petersburg State University's experts has studied and classified data by carbon concentrations in organic matter in soils and soil-like bodies of the Russian Arctic's urbanized ecosystems. This data will be used to forecast climate change and greenhouse gas emissions," the release reads.

The Arctic urbanized ecosystems have been understudied in terms of their participation in regulating the climatically active gases circulations. Scientists are particularly interested in surveying urban soils, their role in storage and stabilization of carbon in organic matter.

"The concentrations and reserves of organic substances in the Arctic urbanized ecosystems' soils have been studied perhaps even less than in the soils of reference tundra and forest-tundra ecosystems. Noteworthy, carbon contents in urban soils are quite variable and depend mainly on anthropogenic factors, such as the accumulation of industrial carbon and pyrogenic compounds, as well as on their age and on types of soil-forming rocks," the press service quoted the survey's author, Head of the University's Department of Applied Ecology Evgeny Abakumov as saying.

Arctic urban soils differ from the reference soils in morphology and composition. Most often they get deprived of the forest litter, and then emerges a humus horizon with a more stabilized organic matter, he continued. If a soil contains a peat layer, it becomes more drained and undergoes mineralization, which leads to additional carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Thus, at the initial stages of urbanization happens a significant loss of organic matter, as well as carbon dioxide releases from peat soils.

Results of the studies in the Russian Arctic will be used to forecast climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to calculate the Arctic's potential to absorb climatically active gases, the expert said. Such studies need to be continued, as the carbon cycle in that region is severely disrupted. Additionally, the Arctic's active urbanization and industrial development may lead to a radical transformation of carbon ecosystems services.