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For field surveys, three test areas of 400 km² are arranged along the steep climatic gradient between the Pre-Taiga and the Forest-Steppe where particularly strong interactions between climate warming and land-use change can be anticipated.
The first test area will be situated west of the city of Tyumen around the village Kaskara representing the situation in the Pre-taiga zone of deciduous forests with prevailing grey forest soils but also wet organic soils under agricultural use. This area represents the current northern limit of profitable agriculture in the region and has well developed agricultural enterprises with close connections to markets. A second test area will be located in the northern part of the forest-steppe zone between the towns Zavodukovsk and Omutinsk with prevailing highly fertile Chernozems. This area exhibits the best soil qualities for arable land use within the region and has also a highly developed and profitable agriculture. The third test area is situated further to the south-east, south of the town of Ischim, representing the southern part of the forest steppe with less favourable conditions for agriculture due to lower soil qualities, salinization problems and its remoteness to economical centres and markets.
The chosen test areas are the fundamental units for the analysis of land cover, current agricultural land-use practices, carbon stocks, hydrology and matter flows, GHG emissions, and biodiversity features. They also serve as the basic units for the development of automated land-cover detection systems, the modelling of the effects of future climate change und land-use scenarios und the exemplified elaboration of landscape-planning tools. The analysis of institutions and governance structure will operate not only in test areas, but also on regional scale and even has to consider the impact of national and international environmental and agricultural policies.