ATLAS OF URBAN AGGLOMERATIONS OF RUSSIA: GIS CONCEPT AND FIRST RESULTS

Abstract

Urban agglomerations play a key role in the settlement system of Russia and the socioeconomic development of its territories. Currently, they continue to pull the population into the areas of their influence and they are also the locomotives of economic growth and points of innovation. Urban agglomerations need a detailed and comprehensive study of the processes associated with the population - demographic, migration, ethnic, settlement, forming the living environment. The most effective tools for this are based in GIS systems, and the most optimal embodiment is an atlas developed on their basis as a complex of cartographic and analytical materials. The Atlas of Urban agglomerations of Russia is a geoinformation product with AIS elements, developed on the basis of approaches used in geographical studies of population settlement. This article describes the concept of GIS, on the basis of which the Atlas of Urban agglomerations of Russia is being developed and includes setting the goals and objectives of research on the development of the Atlas, choosing technologies for creating a geoinformation system, determining the structure of GIS and Atlas, determining the main sources of information. The Atlas of Urban Agglomerations of Russia is not only a set of cartographic works but also a system that allows (based on statistical data) realize spatial modeling, thematic mapping and creating visual plots at various spatial levels, including for strategic and territorial planning and management decision-making. Several meaningful plots are described, which were obtained at this stage of the study, for example, the stages of the spatial and temporal dynamics of the network of urban agglomerations in Russia, the general characteristics of demographic and migration processes, the structure of the Stavropol urban agglomeration.