Sustainable development of land reclamation in Ukraine in the conditions of climate change

Abstract

Purpose. The work is devoted to the development of effective and efficient means of increasing crop yields in the conditions of both natural moisture deficit and its excess on the basis of sustainable agricultural development, using modern irrigation and drainage systems. The relevance of the topic is connected with the remarkable steady tendencies in Ukraine to the deterioration of growing conditions of major crops as a result of global climate change. Methods. Evaluation of the changes in agrometeorological resources of the territory was performed by the method of mathematical and statistical analysis, the results of experimental studies were processed by the methods of system generalization, correlation, economic, computational and comparative analysis. Working out the promising areas of agricultural production was carried out by the method of multivariate simulation computer modeling. Results. The goal of the work is formed on the principles of a systematic approach and combines several components, among which should be noted the development of scientific bases, technologies, technical means, organizational and legal and methodological principles of sustainable agricultural production on the meliorated lands in the conditions of progressive deterioration of natural water supply due to the climate change. The scientific novelty is based on the generalization of our own long-term experimental data with a theoretically substantiated methodology of the formation of highly productive agricultural systems on the irrigated lands. The presented work has an economic substantiation in the form of the proposed methodology of formation of bioenergy agricultural production on the basis of balanced production of food and bioenergy in the system of organic agriculture. The use of bioenergy systems will reduce the cost of production by 2 times and increase the net profit on the meliorated lands to 10–12 thousand USD/ha with a payback period of 2–3 years. Conclusion. The results of the study, presented here, are put into the basis of the “Strategy for Restoration and Development of Irrigation and Drainage Systems in Ukraine”, which was developed with the support and participation of the experts from the World Bank and FAO, as well as the “Water Strategy of Ukraine until 2025”.