The article is devoted to the principal approaches dealing with the landscape-ecological study of forest paludification in taiga zone. The study of landscape structure has been carried out since 1978. As a result:
1. The effects of landscape morphogenesis, subzonal distinctions in climatic features, specific characteristics of the drainage network structure on the structure and dynamics of paludification in Karelia were analysed.
2. The effects of paludification on interactions between forest- and mire formation processes, soil transformation, fragmentation of the soil and forest cover, ecosystem diversity were analysed.
3. Guidelines for quantitative estimation of current paludification rates in the taiga zone were formulated, and a forecast of the paludification dynamics in different landscape types was made.
4. Proposals on environmentally sustainable forest drainage volumes depending on the landscape and climatic-zone differentiation of Karelian territory have been put forward.