YAKUTSK, November 16. /TASS/. Russian scientists are working on a geo-information system and a database of the permafrost’s conditions in Yakutia. The system will be published online in 2022, Deputy Director of the Melnikov Permafrost Institute (the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch) Alexander Fyodorov told TASS.
Earlier, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ordered the government to make necessary changes to the legislation, related to the organization of a state system to monitor the permafrost. Such a system, he said, could be organized at the national hydrometeorology service, Roshydromet. Additionally, the president ordered to plan necessary expenses in the federal budget for 2023 and for the planned period of 2024 and 2025.
"In 2017, the institute made a permafrost-landscape map of Yakutia," the scientist said. "Right now, specialists analyze and interpret maps, make new cartography models."
"Using this data, the experts are working on Yakutia’s geocryology map, which will show the hazardous iced areas, the permafrost’s temperatures, the thawing’s depths, and cryogenic processes," he continued. "This map will be used to make a database, which will contain the entire information on the permafrost."
The data base will be launched in 2022, he added.
Practical effect
The database may be used for territory planning, for planning buildings and structures, in industrial projects’ implementation. "It will give information for consideration," the scientist said. "We outline the patterns, and top managers, engineers will be able to learn information on certain areas."
"Any person will be able to use the data, for example, in construction of a house or buildings. People will pick plots which are safe in terms of cryogenic processes by using the system’s general patterns and the database. Among other data, the base will contain information on the depth of the massive ice layers: the closer they are to the surface, the more dangerous the area is for construction and development. Besides, we will publish information on the depths of the seasonal thawing layers in different landscapes. The ratio between the depth of the ice layers and the depth of the seasonal thawing will offer analytical information for practical purposes," he added.
The scientist pointed to the experience in Yakutia, where "the local people, when they begin building houses in hazardous areas, often make soil hills, vertical foundations, or use hollow pipes for winter cooling. It is most important to know general patterns for a certain territory. The databases will favor sustainable life," the scientist said.
The maps and databases, in his opinion, will be used to forecast the permafrost thawing speed and to see possible negative processes affecting infrastructures and development of territories.
Adaptation to changes
Yakutia’s 95% of the territory are in the absolute permafrost area, he continued. The degradation causes waterlogging and less stability of the perennially frozen soils. Earlier, the institute’s experts said about 40% of Yakutia’s territory face risks from the thawing permafrost, the degradation of which has been growing with the climate changes.
Scientists know quite many permafrost thawing forecasts, he continued. For example, the US experts forecast major changes in 2040. "We have registered soil temperatures in the tundra have risen by 2-3 degrees over recent 30 years, and in the taiga - by 0.5 degrees," he said.
From the 1990s, due to the warming, began the active subsidence of soils at open areas free from forests in Yakutia’s central and northern districts. "Our observations of the icy areas prove the subsidence depths of 10-14 cm in the watered thermokarst depressions, and in meadow areas without active development of thermokarst - about one centimeter," the scientist said.
The most depressing examples of subsidence are the abandoned arable lands, areas of passed wildfires and areas of the forests killed by the Siberian silkworm or by the infrastructure impacts. For example, the runway of the former airport in Central Yakutia’s Churapcha, the Lena River’s waterway - Lake Muryu, and some territories inside settlements.
Permafrost degradation
Both engineering structures and biology systems in the Arctic depend greatly on the permafrost and on its active layers. Changes in the frozen soils’ conditions affect both man-made objects and natural environments, where, for example, plant communities are changing. This is significant for the indigenous population, in particular for reindeer herders, since the replacement of plant communities by other plants means the changing food supply, and therefore affects the traditional activities.
According to the scientist, Russia must have a comprehensive control system to explain the negative changes in the perennially frozen soils. The system will be used for more accurate forecasts thus providing safety of existing and future engineering networks in the Arctic, as well as for estimating how the processes may affect traditional lifestyles and occupations.
The new permafrost monitoring system will have a few levels: a federal, a regional and municipal, as well as the level of companies, developing Arctic deposits. This way, the federal program to set a network of monitoring stations will favor quicker adaptation to the climate changes and to preventing the ruining permafrost thawing.
According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology, Russia’s damage from the permafrost thawing may reach as much as 5 trillion rubles ($68 billion) in 30 years. If the country fails to get adjusted to the global climate changes, the damage for the infrastructures and the natural environment may be even bigger.