The article discusses the economy of Arctic «islands». These territories of the Russian Arctic are unavailable by transport all the year round and have considerable specificity in comparison with the other regions of the Russian and North European Arctic. The authors consider the economy of Arctic «islands» on the example of the Nenets and Chukotka Autonomous Areas. Despite the significant similarity in the economic and social parameters, after careful study, two regions show considerable internal differences. In order to identify dissimilarity, in the comparative analysis, we use the theoretical idea of the Arctic economy as a unity of three sectors — the traditional one, corporate (market) one and transfer (state) one. Each sector has the key contradictions, structures and its trajectory of evolution. The comparison of traditional sectors reveals significant landscape diversity of Chukotka in comparison with the Nenets tundra. The corporate sector of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug economy is significantly younger than in Chukotka, due to the fact that oil and gas development is relatively new practice for the region. On the other hand, because of the mining development of Chukotka gold, which started in 1960-s, it can be considered as an old industrial region. The level of the profitability of gold production is significantly lower than of the Nenets oil production. Therefore, we propose to include the economy of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug to the rental model, and Chukotka economy to the transfer model. The difference of transfer sectors of two areas is the result of not only the difference in the power of the regional budgets, but also of the urban settlement structure which is centralized in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and polycentric in Chukotka. It means that the public health and culture in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug are dated generally for the capital of Naryan-Mar, and social facilities in Chukotka are significantly decentralized and concentrated in Okrug’s and regional centres.

The article substantiates the need for integrated diagnostics of air quality. Such diagnostics should include the generally accepted indicators and consider the rate of child population’s morbidity with respiratory diseases, recognized by the World Health Organisation, as a criterion for assessing the state of the atmosphere in this area. We suggest a method of integrated assessment of the level and changes in air quality over time on the considered territory. This tool allows determining the ratings of the regions on the quality of atmospheric air, the level of environmental development and the degree of its change. Moreover, it helps assessing the factors that affect the aforementioned processes. We tested the proposed methodological tools on the example of the regions of the Ural Federal district (UFD) and the Russian Federation (RF) in general. The calculations made it possible to diagnose the stabilization of environmental and social threats to air quality in the majority of the regions. We concluded that the threats caused by air pollution are increasing. That fact is confirmed by the growth of child morbidity in all regions of the UFD and the RF, except for Tyumen oblast. We propose methodological tools for diagnostics of the territory’s environmental development through integrated comprehensive indices of the state and level of environmental development in part of the air and water protection activities based on statistical indicators. The diagnostics demonstrated positive environmental development in the sphere of air protection in the UFD and the RF. In general, the dynamics of environmental development in the field of water protection are positive, with the exception of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. The mostly positive dynamics of environmental development in the regions of the UFD are a prerequisite for reducing threats in the future.