The search of effective methods of agricultural land protection from soil erosion under conditions of land relations’ reform in Ukraine is a complex ecological and economic issue requiring a system approach to its solution, adequate organizational and economic support and scientific argumentation. The topicality of the research is based on the importance of the problem of arable land protection from soil erosion, and its solution is related to ecologically safe land utilization keeping to the principles of balanced development of land management. The aim of the research is to develop scientific basis for the recommendations how to improve the system of erosion-safe agricultural land management under conditions of reforming land relations in Ukraine. The article presents scientific fundamentals of organization of erosion-safe land management in the context of the balanced development of nature management, analyses conditions of utilization and protection of land in erosion-unsafe landscapes; develop scientifically grounded recommendations as to improvement of a system of erosion-safe agricultural land management at a local level. In the process of the investigation a combination of methods were used: monographic, induction and deduction methods, system analysis, cartographic, experimental projecting. A contour organization of the territory is recommended to apply to protect arable land from soil erosion. Reimbursement of money payments and tax privileges can motivate landowners and land users to introduce anti-erosion measures. It is required to consider use value and non-use value of land resources in the process of their estimation for land payments.

The remote monitoring of atmosphere is designed to obtain information about the state of atmosphere. The principle of the remote monitoring of atmosphere is based on registering and processing of GLONASS/GPS radio signals. Modern networks of active reference stations allow us to solve both practical problems of geodesy, navigation, and purely scientific problems that are important in all geosciences. We propose to explore the existing infrastructure of national networks of active reference GNSS stations for remote sensing of the atmosphere in order to determine the water vapour content in the atmosphere as one of the major factors affecting weather.

The development of GIS technologies, of Earth remote sensing methods, improvement of the legal basis, as well as differences in approaches of creation and functioning of the cadastral systems puts on the agenda the task of using a unified methodological approach for the creation of the cadastral systems. It is particularly relevant during the period of integration and globalization of economic, sociopolitical, scientific and cultural, educational and other programs of different countries and, especially, of the countries of the European Union. The purpose of this research is to attempt to improve the structure of cadastral system with regard to land parcels registration outlining the main directions of scientific and practical research meant for the modernization of the cadastre. The results of the research are suggestions and recommendations about the possibility of creating a unified register of cadastral objects, land parcels in particular, as well as the list of scientific tasks aimed at the modernization and improvement of the cadastral system. The conclusions show that the cadastre should be regarded as the state informational and registration system of geospatial position of the objects, their quantitative and qualitative assessment and legal status at this stage of development of technical, techno-logical and legal trends. In a scientific sense, the cadastre is a branch of science which studies the patterns and principles of formation, functioning and preservation of cadastral objects, information about them and their register.

In 2015−2016 the State University of Land Use Planning and land management faculties of higher educational institutions released the final mass enrolment of graduates who studied “engineer” qualification for five years. Starting from 2016−2017, bachelors and masters of land management began to leave the walls of the State University of Land Use Planning and land management departments of universities. Has the division into two parts - bachelor's and master's been justified? Basically, we can say that this is an international practice and we would not want to live separately from the international community, since we study foreigners from many countries of the world who want to receive education in a Western way; in addition, our students also study abroad. But, unlike the Western baccalaureate, we remain specializations. There are profiles in the undergraduate program: land administration, land management, real estate cadastre, urban cadastre, land valuation, real estate valuation, and so on, that is students receive professional knowledge. Mastership is designed to deepen them. But it is absolutely not necessary to choose undergraduate and graduate programs in the same direction, it can be changed. If a student is not satisfied with the direction or specialization chosen before, he can correct it by studying another mastership program. One undoubted positive consequence of Russia's accession to the Bologna process is the simultaneous assumption of international obligations to maintain the wide accessibility of higher education regardless of financial situation of young people. Europe seeks to provide broad social protection in this area, where Russia has been catastrophically losing ground in recent years. The United States, with all its wealth, has never tried to positively solve this problem and is not going to accept the Bologna rules, and they have enough compelling arguments for this. First of all, do we need a bachelor degree? How will a master match with a candidate of science? Today, the heads of land surveying firms and companies, sociologists, professors of universities as well as educational and scientific institutions are discussing this problem.

The changes in the ownership structure were to be implemented by the Agricultural Property Agency of the State Treasury, which, under the Act of Law of 11 April 2003 on the structuring of agrarian system (i.e. The Journal of Laws of 2012, item 803, as amended), on 16 July 2003 became the Agricultural Property Agency with eleven local branch offices. For the purposes of this article the monographic method was used for the overview of relevant literature and legal provisions, whereas the statistical analysis was employed in the data of the Central Statistical Office and reports on the activities of the Agricultural Property Agency. Until the end of 2015 the main objective of the Agricultural Property Agency was to restructure and dispose of the assets within the Agricultural Property Stock of the State Treasury. Since its foundation, the Agency expanded the Stock by 4.74 million ha. Over time, the operating conditions for the Agency were in a state of flux – they were being adjusted to the changing socio-economic situation. At the beginning, leasing was the basic form of disposal of the Stock land. After Polish accession to the European Union an increased interest in the acquisition of agricultural property was observed. By the end of 2014, as a result of land sale, free-of-charge land transfers or other transactions, approximately 3.2 million ha were disposed of, i.e. about 70% of the whole land which was taken over. Currently, according to the legal provisions, long-term lease is the basic form of disposal of the Stock land.

Land as a production factor occupies a special position in the economic activities of the urban population. Land resources in big cities are not only territorial basis for placing industrial and production structures, but also a space for urban life in general. However, to assess the effectiveness of urban land use, primarily the ecological and economic potential of the use of the urban land resources should be determined aimed at sustainable development of urban agglomerations (Volodchenkov, 2010). The rapid pace of development of large cities in the world and an increase of their impact on the environment and society is accompanied by the set of economic, ecological and social problems which significantly influence the development of settlements in general (Stolʹberh, 2000; Onyshchuk, 2001). However, the process of urbanization as a result of rapid scientific and technological revolution requires large areas for deployment of large scale production facilities and urban settlements in the conditions of natural resource management (Kontorovich, Rivkin, 1986).

In the era of the high level of technological achievements of remote sensing of the Earth and the high level of development of web cartography, interactive web applications for the analysis of data of remote sensing of the Earth are gaining more and more popularity. Considering the large amount of space image data, and the complexity and heterogeneity of the analysis tools that need to be developed, the question arises of quickly and efficiently creating an interactive web application for the analysis of space images that will help scientists monitor and study changes in the Earth's surface and predict optimal ways of territory development with minimal expenditure of time and resources. In solving such a question, the specialized web platform Google Earth Engine (GEE) can help. The purpose of the article is to highlight the characteristics and advantages of the GEE platform by creating an interactive web application using the example of analysing changes in the NDVI index. Analysing GEE allows us to conclude that this web-platform provides a comprehensive solution for creating interactive cartographic web applications for the analysis of space images with a built-in IDE. It will help to significantly reduce development time and costs, allowing for quick and efficient analysis of Earth remote sensing data.

The indirect approach is mainly used to assess the forest-growing potential of lands in the forestry of Ukraine. For these purposes, a comparative ecological (forest typological) method is used to assess soil conditions according to their forest growth effect. The species composition of the forest stand and its productivity are the main indicators of the forest growth effect. The undoubted advantages of this method are high forestry value, low labour intensity and cost, and the main disadvantages are the subjectivity of determining the types of forest conditions (especially derivatives and artificial plantations), its insufficient environmental sensitivity, and the difficulty of applying to places where there is no forest vegetation. The aim of the study was to quantify the quality of forest land and develop markers of the forest-growing potential of soils. The studies were carried out by synthesizing two methodological approaches – forest typological as the leading method for assessing the potential of habitats and direct study of soils (field and analytical). The package of markers was developed to assess forest potential of soils based on the establishment of a correlation between the productivity of forest stands (height, quality class) and soil indicators (thickness of the humus part of the profile, pH, content of clay particles, humus, total and exchange forms of N, P, K, Ca, Mg). The package of markers depends on the soil type and consists of the following soil indicators: the content of particles of physical clay (d<0.01 mm), the thickness of the humus part, as well as the content of humus, N, Ca, K, and Mg. A gradual increase in their quantitative values leads to increase in the forest productivity of the soil and, as a result, the productivity of the forest stand.

This study aims to develop a methodology for determining and calculating the limit size of agricultural land plots that can be leased by individuals and legal entities of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The article substantiates agricultural production after the current long-term lease terms end. The basic condition is the formation of land use, in which there is a close dependence on conditions and factors of production, where land, material resources, and labour are in certain proportions and balanced. The main criteria for determining the limiting sizes of land are: land area, leased to a single entity should not exceed 1/3 of the area of farmland rural district specific administrative area, and the physical person no more than 15% of the area of agricultural enterprises of the same specialization. Emerging land uses should be subject to zonal specialization by natural and agricultural zoning; take into account the minimum thresholds for the area of crop rotation in the crop production sectors and the size of livestock in herds of different types of livestock by the breed composition in the livestock industry.

The article presents an analysis of changes in the agrarian landscape and the subdivision of its plots, using three Lithuanian municipalities as examples (Kaunas, Trakai and Šilutė). Statistical, comparative and multicriteria analysis methods were applied in the study. It was found that in all the studied municipalities, the area of the agrarian landscape was decreasing during the study period. The largest decreasing trends were in the municipality of Šilutė district, where the area covered by agrarian landscape decreased by more than 3%. At the same time, in the municipalities of Kaunas and Trakai districts, the area of agrarian landscape decreased quite evenly and did not reach 3%. It was also found that the number of agricultural holdings also decreased: by 27% in Kaunas district municipality and by over 33% in Trakai district municipality, but the area of agricultural holdings increased in all of the studied municipalities: in Kaunas district by over 5%, in Trakai district by over 37% and in Šilutė district by over 8%. The average size of a farm in Kaunas district remained rather stable, increasing by only 1%, in Šilutė district municipality the average farm size increased by more than 71% and in Trakai district municipality the tendency was the opposite, i.e. the average farm size decreased by more than 36%. The multicriteria analysis shows that the most common factors influencing changes in the agrarian landscape and its subdivision of plots vary between municipalities, but in general the following factors influence the changes in the agrarian landscape and its subdivision of plots: the land productivity score, the number of inhabitants, the distance to the centre of the city, the average size of the farms, the number of holdings, and the amount of land area occupied by bodies of water. The information collected and the results obtained show that in the municipalities analysed, the causes of change in the agrarian landscape and its subdivision of plots have a positive impact on the sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas.