The Underwater Landscape Concept

Abstract

Comprehensive study of the coastal zone of the sea is one of the urgent tasks of modern geography. Underwater landscape studies in Russia are based on the theoretical principles of the Russian geographical school of V. Dokuchaev–L. Berg. The development of marine landscape research in the XX century was facilitated by the advent of scuba diving and remote sensing. The article discusses the general points of the concept of underwater landscape, gives its definition, discusses the features of the morphological structure and the main landscape-forming factors. The landscape of the coastal zone of the sea is defined as a relatively homogeneous section of the underwater coastal slope, which has the same type of geological structure, topography, deposits, hydro-climate (temperature, salinity, currents, wave processes) and similar groups of hydrobionts. It is characterized by a certain combination of intra-landscape natural complexes (facies, landforms), which are special biotopes of bottom biocoenoses. Landscapes of the coastal zone of the sea cover the coastal land exposed to surf (supralitoral), the edge of the land flooded at high tide (litoral) and the underwater coastal slope to a depth where the impact of wave processes fades and illumination is insufficient for the formation of macrophyte communities (sublitoral). The underwater landscape is considered as the main initial unit of landscape zoning of shallow sea waters. Work programs developed with these provisions in mind will ensure the completeness and comparability of research performed by different authors. The concept of an underwater landscape is illustrated by an example of the results of studying the Taman landscape in the Northeastern part of the Black Sea.