Understanding the long-term ecological dynamics of boreal forests is essential for assessment of the possible responses and feedbacks of forest ecosystems to climate change. New data on past forest dynamics and peatland development were obtained from a peat sequence in the southern Valdai Hills (European Russia) based on pollen, plant macrofossil, micro-charcoal, peat humification, and testate amoeba analyses. The results demonstrate a dominance of broadleaved forests in the study area from 7000–4000 cal yr BP. Picea was initially a minor component of this forest but increased in cover rapidly with climatic cooling beginning at 4000 cal yr BP, becoming the dominant species. Broadleaved species persisted until 900 cal yr BP, with evidence for intensified felling and forest management over recent centuries. Over the last four hundred years there is evidence for widespread paludification and the establishment of Picea-Sphagnum forests. These data demonstrate how modern wet woodlands have been shaped by a combination of climatic and anthropogenic factors over several millennia. The results also demonstrate the value of a multiproxy approach in understanding long-term forest ecology.

The last one hundred years of land use history in the southern part of Valdai Hills (European Russia) were reconstructed on the base of high resolution pollen data from the peat monolith taken from the Central Forest State Reserve supplementing with historical records derived from maps of the General Land Survey of the 18^th and 19^th centuries and satellite images. According to the created age model provided by dating using radio-nuclides ²¹⁰Pb and ¹³⁷Cs, pollen data of the peat monolith allow us to reconstruct vegetation dynamics during the last one hundred years with high time resolution. The obtained data showed that, despite the location of the studied peatland in the center of the forest area and rather far away from possible croplands and hayfields, the pollen values of plants – anthropogenic indicators (Secale sereale, Centaurea cyanus, Plantago, Rumex, etc.) and micro-charcoal concentration are relatively high in the period since the beginning of the 20^th century to the 1970s, especially in the peat horizon formed in the 1950s. In the late 1970s – the early 1980s when the pollen values of cereals gradually diminished in assemblages, the quantity of pollen of other anthropogenic indicators were also significantly reduced, which reflects the overall processes of the agriculture decline in the forest zone of the former USSR.

This study presents an approach for predicting soil class probabilities by integrating synthetic composite imagery of bare soil with long-term vegetation remote sensing data and soil survey data. The goal is to develop detailed soil maps for the agro-innovation center “Orlovka-AIC” (Samara Region), with a focus on lithological heterogeneity. Satellite data were sourced from a cloud-filtered collection of Landsat 4–5 and 7 images (April–May, 1988–2010) and Landsat 8–9 images (June–August, 2012–2023). Bare soil surfaces were identified using threshold values for NDVI (<0.06), NBR2 (0.10). Synthetic bare soil images were generated by calculating the median reflectance values across available spectral bands. Following the adoption of no-till technology in 2012, long-term average NDVI values were additionally calculated to assess the condition of agricultural lands. Seventy-one soil sampling points within “Orlovka-AIC” were classified using both the Russian and WRB soil classification systems. Logistic regression was applied for pixel-based soil class prediction. The model achieved an overall accuracy of 0.85 and a Cohen’s Kappa coefficient of 0.67, demonstrating its reliability in distinguishing the two main soil classes: agrochernozems and agrozems. The resulting soil map provides a robust foundation for sustainable land management practices, including erosion prevention and land use optimization.

A methodical approach to the digital mapping of the arable lands area depending on their soil-agroecological and positional conditions is proposed. The approach was tested on a model plot located on the Valdai Upland with an area of 160 thousand ha. Small-scale agricultural development of the poorly dissected moraine plains is limited by the wide distribution of overmoistened soils. Using the traditional discriminant analysis, a measure of the topographically determined duration of soil overmoistening was calculated based on a comparison of the morphological diagnostics of water regime and topography runoff properties according to the grid elements of 30 × 30 m. The drainability range was determined for the arable lands of XVIII century, reconstructed according to the materials of the General Survey. This allowed us to determine the potential area of the arable lands for this period. The area of arable lands, which is characterized by favorable conditions of transport accessibility and soil drainability, was 12 %. At the same time, reconstructed area contained 5 %. In the subsistence economy of the XVIII century more than a half of the potential arable lands of the model region turned out to be undeveloped.

The results of baseline evaluation of soil organic carbon (SOC) contents and stocks, soil bulk density, and their spatial variability and vertical distribution patterns within the upper 40-cm-thick layer of agrosoddy-podzolic soils developed from glacial till (Albic Gleyic Retisols (Episiltic, Anoloamic, Aric, Ochric)) and agrosoddy podzols developed from sands (Albic Podzols (Arenic, Aric, Ochric)) are considered. Thirteen monitoring plots (30 × 30 m) have been established on drained (closed drainage) arable land, hayfield, and unmanaged fallow land of the experimental site of the All-Russia Research Institute of Reclaimed Lands (VNIIMZ) in Tver oblast, European Russia. The spatial variability of the SOC content within the plots exceeds the reproducibility of SOC determination by the dry combustion method by 5–10 times. The standard deviation of the SOC stocks nonlinearly increases with increasing thickness of the assessed layer from 1–5 t/ha for a layer of 0–5 cm to 10–20 t/ha for a layer of 0–40 cm. Differentiated soil sampling from thin layers within the upper 40-cm-thick layer demonstrated a uniform vertical distribution of SOC in the plow layer of the arable land; differences between SOC stocks in the layers of 0–10 and 10–20 cm are statistically insignificant. In the Retisols of the five-year-old hayfield with perennial grasses and of the 5- to 20-year-old unmanages fallow lands, a sod layer of 3–10 cm in thickness is formed, and the SOC content displays an accumulative distribution with a maximum in the surface layer. However, the SOC stocks in the upper and lower parts of the former plow horizon do not display statistically significant differences. Similar regularities have been found for the sandy Podzols against the background of generally lower contents and stocks of SOC.