The research studies the issue of ecological stability of rural territories that is the most important component of the national environmental policy of Ukraine. A special attention is paid to degradation of arable lands as the main ecological problem of land management. On the example of Lviv region, the authors calculated the index of ecological nonconformity of current use of arable lands, proving a considerable excess of permissible ploughing of lands in the region. The carried analysis confirms that no measures were performed concerning land protection, including conservation that in the recent years. In this context it is necessary to improve land resources management on the basis of sustainable development. Integration is considered to be the main principle of land resources management. The research proves that solution of ecological problems of land management requires achievement of a set of coordinated targets concerning development of rural territories, land resources management and national environmental policy based on the principles of suitable development. The targets include: planning of land use outside settled areas on the landscape and ecological basis; land inventory; formation of the land bank of agricultural lands; development and support of alternative kinds of activity on rural area; development of an efficient mechanism to encourage performance of land protection measures; improvement of environmental responsibility of population and development of ecological education. The methodological basis of the research is the concept of sustainable development, which expects support for a continuous character of development in order to meet the current needs along with ensuring the needs of future generations. The fulfilment of the task requires examination of scientific works on the issue of sustainable management of land resources and an ecological component of rural territory development.

The analysis results of common terms in land management and their interpretations in normative-legal acts of Ukraine are presented. It have been established collisions and significant differences in the wording of even such common terms as a land parcel, a boundary of land parcel, a size of land parcel, etc. The purpose of the study is to identify collisions and contradictions of some key terms used in land surveying and geodetic works, as well as development of concrete proposals for improving and perfection the relevant terms. For this purpose, the following tasks were set and solved: analysis of regulatory legal acts of Ukraine concerning the conceptual apparatus of land management, systematization and generalization of substantiation results of the relevant terms correction need, development of proposals taking into account works content on land management and geodetic works for information provision of the State Land Cadastre. In the course of the study, the comparative method of analysis and the systematization of inconsistencies in the current normative legal acts of Ukraine regarding the terms and their interpretation are used. During the proposals development, known approaches "from general to partial" and vice versa were used. The established disadvantages do not allow unambiguously interpreting and performing such important work as geodetic setting or restoration of the land parcels boundaries, resolution of land disputes between adjacent users of land parcels. Completed summaries of content and wording of the relevant terms justify a need for correction of the terms and additions to their definitions. It was set the features of each term. As a result of integrated approach to solution of the existing problem and systematization of established differences, the general wording and detailed specification of the analyzed terms interpretations are proposed. Knowledge of technological stages for geodetic and land management works provided an opportunity to improve the geodetic information support of the State Land Cadastre. The proposals for correction of the studied terms eliminate existing contradictions, provide an unambiguous interpretation of land management terminology, which leads to the exact execution of geodetic and land management works, and, accordingly, obtaining reliable information for the State Land Cadastre.

The key features of the blockchain databases, such as decentralization, distribution, security, and record of the history of all transactions, create significant prospects for their application in the field of cadastre and real estate registration activities, including creation of the global real estate cadastre infrastructure, which will be able to go beyond national legal systems and jurisdictions. The conceptual approach to registration of land plots as spatial objects using blockchain technology is proposed. The land plot should be considered as a combination of smart contracts between landowners, surveyors, appraisers, notaries and other persons. The subject of such contracts will be the description and establishment of spatial (plot boundaries, territorial zones, etc.) and other (property rights and encumbrances, monetary valuation, soil bonitet, etc.) characteristics of land plots. The classification of such smart contracts reliability is also presented.

The main factors that influence the rational land use, conservation and protection of land resources are global ecological and food security, world's population growth, climate change, land acquisition by large world agricultural corporations etc. In this process a priority of attention is protection of the important agricultural lands (in Ukraine, these lands are called especially valuable lands - EVL). Besides, lands with highly productive soils, areas with undisturbed ecosystems, territories with objects of cultural heritage, natural therapeutic resources are a part of EVL. This paper focuses on new approaches to the legal protection of EVL in Ukraine. The special value of these lands in Ukraine is legalized and is means of their legal protection (Art. 150 of the Land Code of Ukraine). The main idea of this paper – studying of problems of legal protection of EVL and development of new approaches to their protection. These approaches will be based on introduction of economic regulators at withdrawal of EVL or change their intended use for needs that don't correspond to nature protection value. The reseach is based on case study method and statistical method. Approaches for cartographic modeling for assessment and mapping of EVL are offered. Results of this reseach are an obtaining of practical experience in the field of protection of EVL in Ukraine, development of suggestions for improving of an organizational and legal mechanism the use of EVL through their registration, monitoring, evaluation, development of their State Register. These measures can increase competitiveness of EVL, prevent Land-Grabbing and provide sustainable development of the rural territory.

The presence of a large number of territorial units with a high price of land determines the appropriate accuracy of their area determination in the short term. The widespread use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is a modern geospatial mapping technology. Using an UAV equipped with appropriate devices for aerosurveying − such as, for example, the Trimble UX5 − is economically feasible in comparison with ground geodetic measurements, since the latter requires a lot of costs. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to analyze accuracy estimation of land parcel area determination based on aero surveying materials using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in comparison with results of ground geodetic measurements using a total station. As a result, a comparison of detailed plan and an existing base of land parcel measurements with accuracy estimations have been made. Based on our analysis and experimental studies, we can state that the UAV allows more efficient data collection within the requirements of land management in comparison with ground geodetic measurements. The use of aero surveying materials for determination of land parcel areas has been proposed. The results of the study provide an opportunity to improve the reliability of land parcel data in the normative and methodological framework.