Biota and Environment of Natural Areas

Antonov A.L.

Nature Reserve «Bureinskiy» (Short Essey)

Year: 2017, Number: 2, Pages: 27-35

Nature Reserve «Bureinskiy» was established in 1987, has an area of 358,4 thousand hectares. It is located in the Western part of the Khabarovsk Krai in the basin of the upper reaches of the Bureya River. The terrain is mountainous, with heights from 555 m to 2241 m. All the streams of the reserve are mountainous character, there are also mountain lakes and floodplain lakes. The climate of the reserve, in general, ultra-continental with features of the monsoon. Long-term mean annual air temperature is -7,2C, absolute minimum -57С; average annual rainfall is 714 mm, more than 80 % falls in the warm period of the year. The vegetation is pronounced altitudinal zonation; it is dominated by mountain larch forests, a spruce, thickets of cedar elfin wood and mountain tundra; in the valleys of the usual poplar-willow-cazenave forest. The fauna of terrestrial vertebrates, in general, typical for the mountain regions North of the Amur region; in its composition two species of amphibians, one species of reptiles, 186 species of birds, 35 species of mammals. In the reserve there are almost no any anthropogenic factors due to the remoteness from settlements, roads and inaccessibility. But on the adjacent reserve areas the level of human exposure increased in the recent years – forests are cut down, developed mineral deposits, roads are built. Threat to the biota of the reserve are also plans for the construction of several HPP in the basin of the upper reaches of the Bureya River. Measures to optimize the reserve by including in it the current buffer zone (53 thousand hectares) are proposed.

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