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Teniz-Korgalzhyn lakes are included in the list of Ramsar sites of international importance and are a place of concentration of a huge number of waterfowl and near-water birds. These are more than 60 fresh and salt lakes with a depth of 1-4 m. Changing the area of the water surface of lakes leads to a change in habitat conditions, species composition and number of birds. The article shows that the changes are associated with both natural and anthropogenic factors. The possibility of studying the dynamics of the area of lakes based on the methods of geoinformation analysis and remote sensing is considered. Several methods have been tested for calculating the area of the water surface of lakes using multizonal space images using specialized spectral indices. On the example of 18 lakes for each method, the mean square error of the accuracy of the results obtained was calculated. It is shown that for the study area the most reliable result is given by the modified normalized water index MNDWI. On its basis, the interannual dynamics of the area of the water surface of the Teniz-Korgalzhyn lakes for the period from 2006 to 2019 was analyzed. It is shown that the fluctuation of the total area of the water surface of the largest lakes during this period reached 2.5 times. At the same time, the trend towards a gradual increase in the area of freshwater lakes since 2013 is primarily due to the action of natural and climatic factors. A much more significant increase in the area of the salt lakes Big and Small Teniz is due to the additional inflow of water due to the breakthrough of the Tabiyak dam in 2015.

The Volga-Akhtuba floodplain is a unique intrazonal ecosystem of the Lower Volga. For many years, the landscapes of the area suffered from an intensive anthropogenic impact, starting with the commissioning of the Volga Hydroelectric Power Plant. Increasing anthropogenic pressure, high ecological value and standing out against the background of semi-desert areas led to the inclusion of this area into the Volga-Akhtuba Floodplain Nature Park in 2000. This article analyses the changes in the functional zoning of the nature park at the beginning of active conservation activities and present. The authors reveal the main hotspots of economic activity represented by agriculture in the region and farmsteads, which include settlements, horticultural societies and their linear infrastructure (road and transport network). In addition, they identify forest ecosystems of particular ecological and aesthetic value. The analysis of the economic impact and distribution of unique forest ecosystems provides an assessment of the changes in the spatial organisation of the area.

Anthropogenic air pollution attracts attention of scientists and the public around the world for many years. Traveling over vast distances, particles and aerosols pollute the environment many kilometers away from emission sources. Primary anthropogenic aerosols enter the air mainly with industrial emissions from factories. Secondly aerosols are formed in the atmosphere through various physical and chemical processes involving water vapor, organic compounds, etc. This group includes sulphur dioxide. The article discusses issues related to the pollution of the environment as a result of the activities of the copper-nickel plant Severonickel, located on the Kola Peninsula. In particular, the problem of accumulation of sulfur compounds in the soil, which occurs over decades at a different distance from the industrial factory. Sulphur dioxide is a toxic substance, at high concentrations in the air there is a harmful impact on living organisms, precipitation leads to acidification of the soil, disturbance of soil and vegetation cover, changes balance and destroy ecosystems. For this reason, it is important to monitor the condition of ecosystems that are under the influence of industrial plants. This issue is dedicated to the work of researchers and students of the Department of Environmental Management of the Faculty of Geography of Lomonosov Moscow State University, who for more than twenty years have been monitoring the state of ecosystems in the impact zone of Severonickel plant, including a number of studies devoted to pollution of the soil with sulfur compounds.

For trouble-free operation of robotic complexes in the Arctic, it is necessary to use reliable radio channels to transmit control commands and to receive data from the robot. During operation, the data radio channel influenced by intentional and unintentional interference. Radio signal synthesis procedure is proposed to ensure efficient operation of robotic systems in complex interference-signal environment adaptation using cognitive radio transmission of information under influence of interfering factors. For creating a radio synthesis procedure used generalized representation signals. The objective function of multi-criteria synthesis of radio signals is substantiated. This function uses a combined quality criterion, which includes particular criteria responsible for throughput and detuning from interference, noise immunity as well as spectral and energy efficiency of the signal formed. The procedure of multi-criteria synthesis of radio signals includes the step of estimating the power spectral density of the interference, the formation of the objective function and optimization for finding the optimum of the objective function. Quasi-Newton methods with finite-difference approximation of derivatives are used for the optimization procedure, since the maximum speed of the algorithm is ensured. The proposed procedure was simulated on a computer. The model included a channel with additive white Gaussian noise and narrowband interference. The study showed that the synthesized radio signals at most unfavorable (among the considered) effects on radio channel by narrow-band interference provide noise immunity at the QPSK-signal level when exposed only to additive white Gaussian noise.

The issues of enhanced vision multispectral systems application for robotic complexes control in the Arctic are considered. The existing contrast enhancement methods are observed. Probability characteristics of images being subject to contrast enhancement parameters are estimated. Based on these characteristics, the authors concluded that image areas requiring the greatest contrast enhancement are the areas with low saturation and magnitude gradients, at certain brightness values. Image quality improvement method is proposed. It performs processing only in the areas where it is necessary to enhance the contrast, practically without affecting the most homogeneous or structured image parts. The processed image saturation remains due to the processing of both luminance channel and saturation channel. The algorithm proposed also provides contrast enhancement of shaded image areas. The calculated values of various objective image quality indices indicate that the contrast enhancement algorithm proposed provides better results than known approaches. In addition, different spectral range image fusion algorithm ensuring visibility in the presence of interfering factors is proposed. It differs from known methods by adaptive weight adjustment in different areas of image. The example confirming the effectiveness of the fusion method proposed is shown. For its comparison with known methods, the values of fusion objective quality indices are calculated. The fusion algorithm proposed is shown to surpass known methods by various quality assessments. The conclusion about the expediency of using the algorithms developed in technical vision systems of robotic complexes in the Arctic is made.

The paper shows the algorithm to assess psycho-emotional status of robotic system operator in the Arctic. It is shown that modern direction of robotics development does not sufficiently take into account the peculiarities of operator work in polar conditions. As a result, the efficiency of operator work can be significantly reduced which may lead to accidents and disabling of robotic systems and, consequently, to an increase in the cost of operations. The paper shows the need for systematic monitoring of psycho-emotional operator status. Modern methods to assess psycho-emotional state of a person in extreme conditions are considered and the assessment by speech signal is shown to be the most appropriate one. At the same time, other methods to assess psycho-emotional status of a person, such as assessment of heart rate and electrical activity of the skin, as well as assessment of facial expressions and body movement, have features that limit their use to assess operator status in the Arctic. The approach to assess psycho-emotional status of a person in the Arctic based on two-dimensional model of emotional plane is proposed, the effectiveness of these models. The possibility of using the proposed method for evaluating the psycho-emotional state of the operator under the conditions of the Arctic.