The article presents the results of the landscapes functions dynamics of the urban settlements by the example of Gomel. The landscape mapping was done on the basis of large-scale town maps, authors’ field research, as well as the studies of drilling materials taken from the open-casts and natural sediments.
The author examines the process of forming lithogeneous base of Gomel landscapes which had been formed as a result of glaciation of the rivers Dnieper and Sozh as well as alluvial accumulation in the valley of river Sozh. The author distinguishes between four kinds of the fundamental landscapes in the urban terrritory, describes their location within town area, defines soil-vegetable cover, embosses the dominating tracts. The original landscapes (moraine and sandy, secondary fluvio-glacial, alluvial and terraced, flood-plain) had been loosing partially their natural functions as fee urban settlement had been developing and after serial changes turned into typical cultural landscapes (natural technical systems) with the set of functions that are quite unrepresentative to them. The geoma of the original landscapes has undergone minimal alteration being the frame of the newly created natural technical systems that play the following roles: residential, industrial, communal, transportation, recreational and so on. The author shows the main threats to the ecological state in each kind of the landscapes.
The further development of the town and its economic complex will be accompanied by the growth of its territory and changes of the functional zones. It is expedient therefore to work out a program of actions for creating an integral natural town frame.
