Russian Permafrost and Ground Ice Maps from 1997 Atlas

1997 data provides polygon maps of permafrost extent, temperature, boundaries, and ground ice thickness for all of Russia. The ESRI Shapefiles were digitized from paper maps in the World Atlas of Snow and Ice Resources, with source scales from 1:20,000,000 to 1:40,000,000. This dataset was extracted from the Land Resources of Russia collection, copyrighted in 2002 by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the spatial distribution of continuous, discontinuous, and sporadic permafrost zones across Russia.
• Modeling ground ice thickness to assess terrain stability and infrastructure risk in Arctic regions.
• Studying soil temperature gradients and permafrost boundary dynamics for climate change impact assessments.
• Integrating historical permafrost extent data with modern satellite observations to track changes over time.

Strengths

• Provides a complete, country-wide spatial coverage of multiple permafrost attributes for Russia.
• Data is derived from a definitive, peer-reviewed source: the 1997 World Atlas of Snow and Ice Resources.
• Polygon features include specific attribute classes based on the original paper map legends.

Limitations

• Source data is from 1997, limiting its utility for analyzing recent permafrost changes.
• There is a conflict in the 'last updated' metadata, with one source listing 2026-03-13 and another 1996-12-31.
• The dataset's scale (1:20M to 1:40M) is suitable for regional analysis but not for local, high-resolution studies.

Provenance

Source

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Collection Method

Digitized from paper maps published in the World Atlas of Snow and Ice Resources, 1997.

Time Range

1997

Freshness

2026-03-13 01:21:40.448089

Geography

Russia