The purpose of the article is to consider the institutional foundations of the rational use of agricultural land in a multicultural economy. The formation of land use is faced with the acute problem of organizing a sustainable competitive land use, ensuring a high level of marketability of production and a sufficient level of profitability in conditions of the developing land market. This article discusses the rational use of agricultural land in a multicultural economy, taking into account structural and resource indicators. The efficiency of land use in farms with different land ownership depends on increasing labour productivity, strengthening the economic regime, increasing the intensification of production, using internal reserves and agricultural production opportunities, and, especially, rational use of land. The greatest efficiency of production and use of land has been achieved in large agricultural formations, where high-performance equipment is used, crop rotations are observed, and there is greater availability of credit resources, subsidies, and leasing. The monitoring data of the Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Statistics for 1.01.2020 indicate that 93.7% of peasant farms have a land area of up to 500 hectares. To the greatest extent, small-earth peasant farms have become widespread in the southern region, where the share in the total number of up to 50 hectares is 90.1%, while in the northern region only 8.1%, central — 3.9%, and western — 11.3%. In this regard, the tasks of preserving productive agricultural lands, and optimizing arable land and acreage in terms of quantitative and qualitative characteristics of land become a priority. The solution to these tasks is connected with the improvement of technologies for maintaining and increasing the bio-productivity of agricultural lands, the development of technologies for rational land management, land use, and land protection, the creation of effective organizational and legal mechanisms for managing agricultural lands, as well as the development of state monitoring of agricultural lands. Optimization of land use in farms and agricultural enterprises of based on the proposed methodology, taking into account state support measures, will create a basis for a new stage in the development of land reform and will create incentives for the effective use of agricultural land.

Cadastral measurement provides cadastral data of a parcel determining its boundaries. In theory, based on the legislative regulations, the boundaries of adjacent parcels should not cross the boundaries of parcels, therefore an overlap of parcels is not possible. Yet the question arises if this requirement is met. The study has been conducted to examine the assumption regarding the possible overlap of adjacent parcels when the parcels abut a road. The study object consists of 24 parcels randomly selected from Kėdainiai district municipality, Lithuania which abut the following roads of national significance: road No. 144 (Jonava – Kėdainiai – Šeduva) and road No. 195 (Kėdainiai – Krekenava – Panevėžys) as well as regional road No. 2007 (Akademija – Šlapberžė – Berželė). The cadastral measurements of the selected roads were carried out in the period of 2013–2014. During the study, the analysis of the conditions of overlapping of boundaries and the areas of the overlap have been carried out. The results of the study indicate that the boundary accuracy of parcels is inaccurate in relation to road boundaries.

Land management and improvement of computer technologies in land use are one of the most important tasks of the state; their effective implementation is closely linked to the widespread implementation of modern achievements of information technology. The achievement of the maximum transparency of the processes is vital in the field of geo-information and spatial data resources during increasing the reliability and manageability of the infrastructure.

Land cover objects are reflected in a set of georeferential data and are constantly changing. These changes can be accurately examined by computer and interactive information systems. One of the main advantages of computer information systems is the fact that their maps can be constantly improved and updated. The update of georeferential data was conducted in a selected area using the ArcGIS software. After the analysis of the Lithuanian land cover data, the area meeting the following criteria was selected: a diverse landscape, the abundance of different objects (built-up areas, forests, bodies of water), an adjacent city and good access to major metropolitan areas. The article presents the updated georeferential data and tracks changes in the updated data of built-up areas, areas overgrown with trees and shrubs, dams, swimming pools, lakes, ponds and roads in the selected area within the period from 2008 to 2015. The results revealed that changes occurred in all analysed layers. It proves that land cover objects are constantly changing. The greatest change was observed in the data of built-up areas. In comparison with 2008, in 2015 even 41% of built-up areas was changed (i.e. the old boundaries were revised, new and defunct built-up areas were discovered), 125 new areas have overgrown with trees and bushes and 46 changes were observed in ponds and pools.

All land of the Republic of Belarus can be classified by categories (7 categories), types of lands (14 types), land users, forms of ownership and types of rights to land plots. The total area of land in the Republic of Belarus is 20760 thousand hectares, including agricultural land occupies 9103.0 thousand hectares (43.8%) of the total area of the republic; settlements, horticultural associations, dacha cooperatives – 849.0 thousand hectares (4.1%); industry, transport, communications, energy, defence and other purposes – 622.2 thousand hectares (3.0%); environmental, health, recreational, historical and cultural purposes – 868.7 thousand hectares (4.2%); forest fund – 8656.4 thousand hectares (41.7%); water fund – 37.3 thousand hectares (0.2%); reserve land – 623.4 thousand hectares (3.0%). The basis of the land resources used in the agro-industrial complex of the republic is arable land, meadows and land under permanent crops, which in general occupy 8387.1 thousand hectares, or 40.4% of the total area of land. The state owns 20683.6 thousand hectares (99.63%) of land, private property – 76.4 thousand hectares (0.37%) of the total area of all lands of the republic. In terms of environmental stability, the territory of the republic belongs to medium-stable territories, the coefficient of environmental stability is 0.63, and in terms of the degree of anthropogenic load – to territories with a relatively low anthropogenic load, the coefficient of anthropogenic load is 2.79.

Development and management of green area systems is important to both the environment and a person. It bears social, economic, and ecological significance. This system must comply with principles of sustainable spatial development. Therefore, well-developed systems of green areas must become the basic aim of all cities. Marijampolė, the seventh biggest city of Lithuania was selected as the research object. In the article the system of Marijampolė city green areas is analysed. Two surveys, which included questionnaires, were conducted, i.e. city inhabitants and territory-planning and management specialists were interviewed. It was identified that the system of Marijampolė green areas is not balanced and there are enough green areas only in part. However, the current parks, squares and other green spaces do not ensure full-fledged citizens’ life. Marijampolė lacks equipped, applied to various activities local green areas for different age groups of the community, the development and maintenance of which must primarily be the inhabitants’ concern.

The study aimed at examining the spatial pattern of residential densification in housing submarkets of Bida, an ancient traditional town in Nigeria. The study adopted the 2015 standard residential density of Niger State Urban Development Board to determine the level of residential density and occupancy rates of the various submarkets of the town. The study also adopted primary method of data collection through the use of satellite images, handheld GPS and georeferencing of demarcated areas and the buildings, using point features and vector approach in ArcGIS environment to achieve the area coverage, number of buildings and buildings per hectare (ha) in the housing submarkets. The finding of the study reveals that in 2008 Town housing submarket has the highest area coverage, followed by the Project Quarters and then GRA, but in terms of residential density, four housing submarkets of Town, Rahmatu Dangana, Gbazhi and Wadata have high densities above the other seven submarkets. The study further reveals that in the year 2013, additional eight housing submarkets have high residential densities, GRA medium density while Eyagi and Prject Quarters had low densities respectively. It was therefore recommended that there is the need for rational densification (planned densification) for urban development in order to check the increasing unplanned residential density that reduces the green and open spaces in urban environment.

The issues of environmental protection, prevention of degradation and reclamation of damaged land are currently very significant and relevant. As damaged land has been observed the land where low productivity and low economic potential have arisen and natural productivity of ecosystems is changed due to human-caused activities. The nature and extent of the violation depends on the type, depth and duration of anthropogenic impact, on adopted system of work organization and the conditions of the environment. Black soil dominates in the soil cover in Samara region; therefore there has been developed agricultural production. However there are located large oilfields and gas fields, which are under active exploitation and reduction of vegetation, dumping technological sites, laying trenches for pipelines, etc. have been noticed, which leads to formation of technogenic soils, damaged land cover, loss of soil fertility and land use type change. There special restoration measure − reclamation should be putted into practice on the territory of all categories of land, but especially on agricultural land. The aim of the article is to study the situation with damaged agricultural land in Samara region of Russia and to develop scientifically based proposals for regeneration of its fertility after reclamation measures. The problems of pollution of agricultural land in the region have been investigated, main sources and types of pollution have been analysed, as well as legal, methodological and environmental protection documents on land reclamation have been studied. The peculiarities of reclamation of land on federal, municipal and property level have been considered. The article presents measures for reclamation of the land on the example of natural monopolies in the territory of the Samara region.