At the moment all three Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – use Baltic Normal Height System 1977 as a national height system. But the European Union regulations declared the European Vertical Reference System as a national height system. For height transformation there is a transformation formula for each European country. After calculations it is seen that height difference between Baltic Normal Height System 1977 and the European Vertical Reference System depends on point location in the territory (coordinates). This unequal height difference between both height systems will cause unequal height values on border connection points between the Baltic countries.

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 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.

The role of space geodetic techniques combination is becoming increasingly important to calculate the geodetic parameters. It has an intention of using the advantages and complementarity of different techniques to achieve the best solution. Estimation of geodetic parameters from observations mainly was done by least squares adjustment within the Gauss - Markov model. The combination can be done at three different levels: observations, normal equations and parameters. This article analyses the differences between the approaches and discusses the possibility of troposphere parameters calculation from a theoretical point of view.

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.

For millennia, the geodesic industry has improved methods and technologies for obtaining information on the location of objects on the Earth's surface, whose key task has been to improve the accuracy and reliability of measurements. At the same time, in recent decades, the rapid development of positioning technologies based on satellite radio navigation systems has created prerequisites for a situation where the acceptable accuracy of determining the geodetic characteristics of real estate becomes quite affordable even when using non-specialized geodetic equipment, including personal mobile devices. The article shows that the error in determining the area of land for registration of rights to real estate has its own “costˮ, which depends on the value of real estate in the area of survey. By the example of model sites, it is shown that further improvement of the accuracy of engineering surveying to determine the spatial characteristics of real estate objects would be economically feasible only if the cost of geodetic surveys (including the cost of purchasing new geodetic equipment, payment for labour of specially trained engineers, additional technical services and etc.) will not exceed the “cost of errorˮ to determine the area of the site. Using the example of Ukraine, it is shown that the most accurate geodetic surveys (determining turning points of land borders with an accuracy of more than 0.02 m) are economically feasible only when the market value of a land plot exceeds USD 208 per square meter.

Nowadays, various types of geodetic measuring instruments are available in surveying. When conducting a survey of a terrain, surveyor must choose a survey method that is capable of providing high precision measurements. In the surveying process, it is possible to use the following measurement methods − tachymetric survey method, positioning method and remote sensing method. Each of the methods produces data formats that can be used further for volume calculations. The paper analyses the volume differences that are obtained when using various survey methods and volume calculation programs to obtain the surface model. The use of such a tool is important for useful mineral miners, so that surveyors make qualitative surveys and obtain accurate and reliable volumes. Useful minerals miners are required to report annually on their mining volume for a specified period. The useful minerals miners shall at all time keep records of the quantities of minerals actually extracted. Regardless of the type of accounting, topographic surveying and the calculation of volumes, if mineral is extracted in mineral deposits of national importance, more than 50 000 m**3, are required (Augstas detalizācijas topogrāfiskās…, 2012). High-quality and accurate topographic survey is needed to create the most realistic surface model appropriate to the terrain. It is defined that the difference between the volumes obtained from the recording of vehicle loads should not be more than 5% when comparing the result of the mineral extraction from topographic surveys (Derīgo izrakteņu ieguves…, 2012; Noteikumi par valsts…, 2018). Nowadays, various measurement methods can be used to obtain data from which a surface model can be generated, and this model can then be used for volume calculations. The surface model is a set of points where, in addition to plane coordinates (x and y), there is also altitude (z) known (Luukkonen, 2011). Each measurement method has its own different measuring instruments that can be used, each method has its own operating principles, on which the quality and accuracy of the obtained data depends.

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.