DEVELOPING A SERIES OF MAPS FOR ECOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL EVALUATION OF LAND RESOURCES OF THE NEW MOSCOW TERRITORY

The territory of Moscow increased significantly after the adjoining to the city the southwestern regions in 2012. Changing the status of these territories leads to changes in their economic, social and geographical position, functional structure and population of settlements, the configuration of transport, increase of housebuilding, land use change, raise of anthropogenic pressures on natural objects, etc. In view of those changes the Cartography and Geoinformatics department of the Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2013 launched a project aimed in creation a series of maps for integrated environmental and geographical land assessment of the new Moscow territories. It implies the development of informational support for a comprehensive assessment of natural and human-made environment, the intensity of land use and population occupancy and movements with the aid of geotechnology, including geoprocessing operations and remote sensing data, implemented in geographic information system (GIS) and online technologies.