Major Environmental Concerns  

[ Land Degradation | Forests | Biodiversity | Marine and Ice | Ozone Depletion | Pollution | Population ]

The mainland of the Arctic is dominated by tundra with taiga, or boreal forest, in the southern parts of the region. Other major land cover types include alpine and high mountain areas, broad-leaved forests in coastal areas and valleys, as well as marshes and glaciers.

The tundra are the vast treeless plains of the Arctic. Due to low temperatures, permafrost, low bacterial activity, and almost complete lack of invertebrate soil fauna, biological material is decomposed slowly in tundra areas. Nutrients are thus not readily available for new plant growth. The result is low production, slow plant growth, and slow revegetation where vegetation has been damaged or removed (EEA/NPI, 1996).

The natural factor that most strongly determines the landscape character in the far north is permafrost. Where there is continuous permafrost, the ground is frozen up to a depth of 400 metres. During the summer, melting only occurs to a depth of about 1 metre, which creates a poorly drained often marshy landscape intersected by dry ridges (EEA/NPI 1996).

The low production of the terrestrial ecosystems makes the Arctic tundra particularly sensitive to land degradation and erosion. Annual melting of the topsoil above the permafrost layer combined with damage to the vegetation cover by human activities can lead to erosion. This process is further exacerbated by slow vegetation regrowth. In northern Scandinavia, herding of reindeers has also led to overgrazing and subsequent erosion. Sulphur dioxide emissions from nickel smelters have also led to vegetation damage and subsequent erosion, as, for example, on the western part of the Kola Peninsula (Tommervik et al., 1995).

United Nations Environment Programme