Modern technologies make it possible to obtain a lot of diverse information about the soil properties using satellite images, but field studies are also required to create or refine digital soil maps. To create a digital soil map scaled 1:25 000 in 2016, a classical field study was conducted with the laying of soil sections in places with the same coordinates as in the mapping of 1982. It allowed to carry out retrospective monitoring of transformation of morphogenetic and agrochemical properties of soils of the southern forest-steppe of the Republic of Bashkortostan (Russia) for the 34-year period of farm use. Thus, the correction and digitization of the soil map allowed to establish that arable land occupies 69.792 ha (67.9%) in the structure of agricultural land (102 811 ha). The monitoring showed deterioration of the main characteristics of arable soil fertility: the diminishing of humus-accumulative horizons, significant decrease of humus content (p ≤ 0.05), a small but reliable acidification of the medium reaction and reducing labile phosphorus. Losses of organic matter occurred mainly in the most fertile soils; their proportion decreased from 55.9% of the total area of agricultural land to 12.4%.

Global climate change is a fact that affects all components of the environment. The main aim of this research was to conduct the retrospective monitoring of soils in the Trans-Ural Steppe Zone (Russia) and the analysis in changing of key climatic parameters for the periods 1937–1982 and 1982–2019. We investigated average temperatures and precipitation (monthly and annual) using archived data from a nearby weather station, as well as data from NASA and weather forecast websites. We identified a decrease of soil fertility and an increase in alkalinisation processes over the past 37 years for the studied area. Comparison of these periods showed an increasing the average monthly and annual air temperatures (on 1.4°C) and a decrease in the amount of precipitation in the summer (on 4.4 mm) period. We found that a more arid climate accelerates the rate of soil salinization due to the active evaporation of groundwater. Nevertheless, in some areas there were found the soil desalinization due to the change in the hydrologic regime and lowering of the groundwater level. In general, the climate changing in the studied region is consistent with global warming trend. Increased average annual temperature and reduced precipitation in summer period contribute to aridization of the region. Such conditions will more restrict soil fertility due to development of salinization and desertification processes.