This paper presents the stages of cartographic study into vegetation of Baikalian Siberia (the southern part of East Siberia). It highlights the ways toward shaping the principles and methods of the Irkutsk (Siberian) school of mapping vegetation as a component of geosystems, the founder of which was Academician V.B.Sochava. The initial stage in studying vegetation of Baikalian Siberia involved cartographic support of the resolution of ecological problems within national programs of integral development and exploitation of natural resources in the country’s eastern regions.
The current stage of cartographic study into vegetation of Baikalian Siberia is determined by changes in the nature management paradigm in circumstances where the market economy is being shaped. This stage is characterized by the transition from general purpose-regional small-scale universal mapping to generation of medium- and large-scale assessment-forecast maps of vegetation for ecological accompaniment of a variety of economic measures, such as development of oil and gas fields in the Prebaikalia, an enhancement and promotion of recreation at Baikal, etc.
Presented is the algorithm of geobotanical forecasting as a multistage process of conjugate mapping of vegetation. Using the key areas on the Angara-Lena interfluve and in Northern Priolkhonie as an example, different aspects of anthropogenic and natural stability of vegetation are considered from the perspective of geobotanical forecasting. The economic value of vegetation is determined according to its ecologo-protective and resource potentials. Recommendations are made for nature management optimization on a forecasting-geobotanical basis.
