Geoinformation dynamics analysis of the different-species urban forest area in Almaty.

The unique urban forests of Almaty, being part of the Ile-Alatau National Park, have the highest not only ecological, but also recreational value, which often causes their degradation. There are many rare and endemic species in the forests. Relic forests of Schrenk spruce, unique mountain deciduous and fruit forests, including relict forests dominated by Sievers apple trees, apricots, carcasses, whose areas have significantly decreased over the past century, need special protection. To study the spatial distribution and dynamics of urban forests of different species composition for 2014-2020, remote sensing methods, geoinformation analysis, mapping, statistical methods implemented by GIS tools were used. Forest inventory materials, Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 images were involved. Two maps have been constructed showing the distribution of heterogeneous forests in 2014 and 2020. For quantitative assessments, algorithms for statistical processing of the attributes of the obtained vector layers in the GIS environment were used. The calculations showed that the main areas in the south of the study area are occupied by spruce forests (54%), in the north - by apple forests (16%). The latter are located within transport accessibility from residential areas of the city and are under ever-increasing anthropogenic load. It is shown that, in general, the areas of urban forests, due to the conservation status, have decreased slightly. However, the most valuable spruce and apple forests are characterized by the greatest losses, and to a lesser extent, poplar-aspen forests. The greatest losses of spruce forests were noted in the basins of the Malaya Almatinka and Kumbel rivers, apple forests - in the Esentai river basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]