Stability assessment of polygonal peatlands under contemporary climate change and anthropogenic pressure

The accelerating activation of hazardous cryogenic processes in the Arctic has elevated the understanding of cryogenic landscape stability under natural and anthropogenic influences to a high priority. These processes are driven by intensified warming over the past two decades and exacerbated by active economic development. Specifically, one of the most sensitive cryogenic landscape types to external factors—abundant in the tundra and adjacent forest–tundra transitional zone of Western Siberia—is ice-wedge polygonal peatlands. Moreover, these peatlands act as a framework for permafrost preservation, particularly near the southern limits of its continuous distribution. In this study, an assessment of polygonal peatland stability to climatic fluctuations, lake shoreline erosion, and anthropogenic impacts was conducted through a detailed cartographic inventory of all polygonal peatlands in the Pur–Taz interfluve, based on available satellite remote sensing data. Criteria were defined and the relative weights of the aforementioned factors were ranked using data from long-term monitoring of changes in polygonal peatlands at key reference sites. Geoinformation analysis of the compiled data and the resulting stability map enabled the identification of the most and least stable areas for polygonal peatland distribution in the Pur–Taz interfluve, with consideration of anthropogenic load. Based on the analysis of the cumulative effect of the considered factors, the number of polygonal peatlands unstable to external influences increases compared to the results obtained for each factor individually. Therefore, assessments of cryogenic landscape stability that treat each influencing factor in isolation may not accurately reflect the actual level of external impact and may consequently misidentify the causes of observed landscape changes.