Land is "an area of the earth's solid surface, the characteristics of which embrace all reasonably stable, or predictably cyclic, attributes of the biosphere vertically above or below this area, including those of the atmosphere, the soil and underlying geology, the hydrology, the plant and animal populations, and the results of past and present human activity." (FAO, 1976). Land is a living, basic support system that supplies most living forms with the space, energy, and nutrients essential for all the biochemical metabolisms occurring in any organism. Land also plays a key role in major biogeochemical cycles within ecosystems and globally. Two major domains are generally associated with land: (1) natural conditions and (2) land endowments displaying various consequences of anthropogenic intervention (see accompanying figure). The term "land quality" refers to the natural capability of land to meet certain anthropogenic activities in a broad sense. Land quality is traditionally interpreted in terms of land resources. Throughout time, people have exploited land in different ways, ranging from simple watching of landscapes and primitive collection of herbs to intensive land management in which land was massively distorted by heavy machinery and artificially generated industrial areas.

These two poles are different human strategies: to adapt ourselves to the land's capacity, on the one hand, or to rebuild land to fit peoples' demands. These strategies could be also considered from an evolutionary perspective. Human beings wish to be more secure and less vulnerable to natural cataclysms. Over time, some societies become better armed to manage natural processes. This path has different consequences and all of them must be deeply studied in order to maximize benefits and minimize obvious losses. The major question of how society should maintain and enhance the potential of land resources and mediate environmental degradation remains open. Many scientific and practical institutes are looking for an appropriate answer and have gained a lot of achievements. There is a crucial need to develop a tool for exchanging and extrapolating accumulated knowledge.

This CD-ROM intends to approach the problem from a systems-analytical perspective. We believe that information on the proper use of land resources should be reliable and easy to use. It should be captured and handled by modern analytical tools. The concept we suggest for such an information system is to establish land attributes in a traditional three-dimensional fashion: socioeconomic, natural characteristics, and land endowments (see accompanying figure). By examining spatially explicit interactions between these aspects we are able to discover combinations that minimize conflicts, to make the most efficient trade-offs, and to link social and economic development with environmental protection and enhancement. The CD-ROM is in line with Chapter 10 of Agenda 21, as adopted by the Plenary in Rio de Janeiro, on 14 June 1992, which calls nations toward an integrated approach to the planning and management of land resources and contributes to achieving the objectives of sustainable development.

The goal of this CD-ROM is to answer the need for comprehensive data on the land characteristics of Russia. The data included have been specially selected and filtered to meet the following criteria: (1) completeness: to meet a variety of the analysis tasks; (2) complexity: to describe a diversity of the task aspects; (3) consistency: to provide compatible results; to be at a compatible scale and, to provide a compatible time horizon;and (4) uniformity: to allow them to be standardized and formatted according to modern data handling routines.

The principle of geographic uniqueness makes impossible any mechanical extrapolations of land use practices from one region to another. In addition, each country has its own socioeconomic environments and traditions in measurements and terms of land inventory and use. This raises the problem of the fluency of information exchange. Is it possible to share "good practices"? The major data of this CD-ROM can be converted into worldwide formats, connecting local experience with that of other countries. This approach provides a key to the challenging analysis and helps users find solutions that better match regional and local goals.

Reference
FAO. 1976. A Framework for Land Evaluation. Soils Bulletin No. 32. FAO, Rome and ILRI, Wageningen. Publication No. 22.79.

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