A new survey-reference vegetation map of the Baical region

The Baikal region is a vast and complex geographic formation. Its central component is the unique Baikal Lake, recognized by UNESCO as the World Heritage Site. The territory of the Baikal region is located in the center of Asia, connecting two subcontinents: the North and Central Asia. The paper presents the stages of the cartographic studies of vegetation in the south of East Siberia within the Russian Federation, as well as in North Mongolia. All available different-scale vegetation maps of this area, literary and archival sources, and forest inventory data, as well as modern satellite images obtained from the Internet resources (Google Earth) were used to compile the vegetation map of the Baikal region. The main attention was paid to the principles and methods of mapping in 1 : 2 500 000 scale. When creating the legend well-tested for Siberian regions geographical-genetic and structural-dynamic principles of multi-dimensional and multilevel vegetation classification were applied (Sochava, 1979). Accordingly, the legend of the map has a multi-level structure. The highest hierarchical level of the legend is formed by the following vegetation types: high mountain (alpine), taiga (boreal) and steppe. Each type of vegetation is presented by its own set of plant communities of genetically close phratries of formations and their regional groups of formations. The paper describes only the structure of the highest subdivisions of the legend of the vegetation map of the Baikal region, as it is not possible to publish the whole legend due to the limited paper size. However, a fragment of the vegetation map with a full legend is presented. In general, the new map reveals in details the spatial flora-coenotic structure of the vegetation cover of the Baikal region in its evolutionary-genetic and dynamic aspects.