Аннотация:The soil cover of any landscape is, on the one hand, a continuous formation, on the other hand,
it may be considered as a set of different soils on some hierarchical level of a soil classifcation.
Analysis of correspondence between the entities of a soil classifcation and the soil cover allowed E.
Dmitriev (1988) to propose the concept of pedo-coenosis. The Zipf’s –Pareto law is used in biology
to describe the structure of coenoses. This law is widely applied in various scientifc felds for the
analysis of community structure in a broad sense.
The study was performed on example of the Bryansk region landscapes, which are the part of
the Russian Plain. Peculiarities of soil units’ areas distribution on the soil maps of scale 1:50,000
were studied. The main features of the Opolje are a relatively high location (elevation marks about
180-200m above the sea level) and the presence of loess-like loams. The soil cover is dominated
by automorphic gray forest soils (Phaeozems Albic), to date almost completely under cultivation.
Light erodibility of loess-like loams causes the development of erosion processes. The hydromorphic
analogues of gray forest soils (Phaeozems Gleyic) were associate to depressions. A small amount
of sod-podzolics soils (Albeluvisol Umbric) and alluvials meadow soils (Fluvisols Umbric) were
marked as part of the territory. Three areas of Bryansk Opolje were studied. The number of
allocated soil map units was 220, 303 and 417, respectively. The areas of the units ranged from
2800 m2 to 1 ha.
Rank-order graph of the logarithms of the areas of the soil maps units of all three sites under
consideration to the rank logarithms consisted of several linear segments. The coefcients of
determination for each of them were higher than 0.95, provided that even for the shortest segment
the sample volume exceeded 30 values. The frst line segment corresponded to the soil map units
with the largest area. It was a few map units with not eroded gray forest soils and complexes of
gullies and ravines soils. In the middle part of the graph gray forest soils and gray forest gleyic
and gley soils with little participation of sod-podzolics soils were placed. Gray forest soils with
different degrees of erosion appeared more often with the rank increasing. The last graph segment
corresponds to the map units of a very small area arising as a result of mapping errors or when
digitizing paper map.