Dendroecological research performed in the Selenga River downstream basin have been published

10.15.2018

Regional tree-ring width (TRW) chronology of the Scots pine was constructed from 8 sites in the forest-steppe belt situated in the foothills of the Selenga River basin, Russia. Moisture information contained in tree-ring width chronology was obtained through linear regression reconstruction models of annual August–July precipitation and of annual water discharge of the Selenga River during the period 1767–2015. Comparison of the smoothed series allowed estimating long-term variation component of these moisture regime parameters with a high precision. At the same time, regional drought indices are less correlated with pine radial growth, because they have contribution of the other environmental variables, which are much less reflected in the tree-ring of the investigated pine forest stands. Reconstructed dynamic of the moisture regime parameters is supported by documental evident of many socially significant events in the regional history, such as crop failures caused by both droughts and floods, and catastrophic fire in the Irkutsk in 1879.

More details on this study results can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40333-018-0025-y.