Environmental services of natural systems of the Volga-Akhtuba floodplain as the basis of its recreational potential

The article shows the importance of preserving natural geosystems for human and economic activities through the example of unique natural landscapes of Volga-Ahtyba’s floodplain. Research largely focuses on recreational activity, which is one of the areas of economical specialization of the region. Natural geosystems of Volga-Akhtuba floodplain provides large range of geo- environmental services. There are two possible methods of their estimation: separately for each service, and by comparison with the average values of similar landscapes, determined for the Earth as a whole. The total cost of geo- environmental services is high and significantly exceeds the income from different types of economic use, in particular, from the commercial fishing and agriculture. Therefore, natural landscapes should be preserves or weakly changed by human activity. Ii permits to hold the providing of geo- environmental services at the same level or to minimize its decline. One of such possible "gentle" forms of economic activity is recreation with certain limitations which include, in particular, the number of recreants per unit length or area of the coast and fishing. However, it is necessary to develop forms of tourism, which have small impact on natural geosystems. River cruises and historical tourism are good examples of such forms. Recreational activities is possible due to providing of recreational and (in this case they are less important) other services by natural geosystems. This fact should be considered in environmental management.