Abstract

The northern part of western Siberia, which comprises the Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Districts of Tyumen Oblast, Russia, is one of the most urbanized areas exposed to the subarctic climate. Here, we study the specific socio-natural interactions affected by the development of urban green infrastructure in such climatic zones as middle and northern taiga, as well as forest-tundra. Analysis of vegetation indices allowed the tracing of general trends in the dynamics of green space transformations. Most cities located in the forest tundra and northern taiga zone show a trend towards greening. In the cities located in the middle taiga zone, which has a warmer climate and large areas of primary woody vegetation, the warming effect and artificial landscaping do not have the same noticeable influence on the overall growth trends of phytomass. At the same time, a tendency towards the leveling of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) can be seen in the oldest, well-landscaped cities and younger cities with developing green infrastructure.

Moskovchenko, D., Fedorov, R. and Fakhretdinov, A. (2025). Green infrastructure dynamics in the urban areas of subarctic Western Siberia. Urban Ecosystems, 28(4). doi https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-025-01759-7