Georgy Nikolaevich (or Mykolayovych) Vysotsky (; ; 7 February 1865 – 6 April 1940) was a Ukrainian and

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

soil scientist and forester who worked in the steppe, where he examined forest growth and the effects of soil factors. Vysotsky was born in

Nikitovka Nikitovka () is a rural locality (a selo) and the administrative center of Nikitovskoye Rural Settlement, Krasnogvardeysky District, Belgorod Oblast, Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and Nort ...

and went to the

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

Petrovsky Agricultural Academy in 1886, where he came under the influence of

Vasily Dokuchaev Vasily Vasilyevich Dokuchaev (; 1 March 1846 – 8 November 1903) was a Russian geologist and geographer who is credited with laying the foundations of soil science. The Ukrainian city of Dokuchaievsk is named after him. Overview V ...

and Georgy Fedorovich Morozov. He worked from 1890 at the Berdyansk Reserve and in 1892 joined Dokuchaev on an expedition to

Poltava Poltava (, ; , ) is a city located on the Vorskla, Vorskla River in Central Ukraine, Central Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Poltava Oblast as well as Poltava Raion within the oblast. It also hosts the administration of Po ...

and became manager of the Great Anatolian forest reserve. There, he experimented on the use of forest strips to manage droughts. From 1904, he worked on experimental forestry near Samara. From 1913, he worked on reforestation of the steppe near

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

and from 1918, he began to teach first in Kiev and then in

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and

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

. He conducted his research on forest growth and regrowth, studying soil hydrology, soil salinity and other factors. A major contribution was his approach to measuring the moisture balance of forests, which has been modified and goes by the name of Vysotsky-Ivanov moisture coefficient defined as the ratio of the annual precipitation to the annual evaporation. Based on that index, he suggested a land classification. In 1915 he received the Semenov-Tian-Shanskyi gold medal from the Russian geographical society.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vysotsky, Georgy 1865 births 1940 deaths Foresters Ukrainian ecologists Ecologists from the Russian Empire