THE CURRENT ENVIRONMENTAL STATE OF THE FIELD PROTECTIVE FOREST BELTS OF THE FOREST STEPPE OF UKRAINE

The vast majority of field protective forest plantations in Ukraine were created in the 1950s and 1970s. Today, most of them are reaching a critical age and need reconstruction. However, the first stage should be an assessment of their current ecological state, on the basis of which the following measures for their reconstruction can be developed. Field observations were conducted during 2021-2022 in the right-bank forest-steppe natural zone in the central part of Ukraine, Vinnytsia region, Vinnytsia district. The total survey area was 400 km2. In total, 70 main field protective forest belts and 40 auxiliary field protective forest belts in the zone of intensive agricultural production were surveyed.The main field protective forest belts perform much more environmental protection functions than the auxiliary forest belts, in particular, they slow down the wind speed, optimize the microclimate of the surface layer of the atmosphere, stop the development of soil erosion processes, and others. Their more intensive performance of defensive functions causes them to be more suppressed, compared to the auxiliary ones. In particular, in the main field protective forest belts, the share of felled trees was 6.6% higher than in the auxiliary ones, the share of dry trees was 1.2% higher, drying trees were 0.9% higher, the share of trampled vegetation was 2.3% higher, which in aggregate increased the fire danger in the main field protective forest belts by 4.1% compared to the auxiliary ones. Also, all the main field protective forest belts were littered with solid household waste. That's why, the main field protective forest belts need priority protection measures.