Land degradation is a topical issue not only in Latvia, but also in Europe. Even the real estate additional tax rate of 1.5% does not prevent agricultural land from overgrowing, and there is no other legal mechanism to control it. One of the mechanisms of prevention of land degradation process is reconstruction of drainage systems, change of worthless agricultural land (less than 25 points) to forest land or improvement and return of agricultural land (more than 25 points) to economic production. Although such actions require financial resources, there may be a variety of financial support programs, for example, the decrease of the real property tax rate (in case of afforestation).

Solution of ecological problems is an urgent and extremely important task at the present stage of social economic development of Ukraine. Unreasonably high degree of economic (mostly agricultural) reclaiming of area causes spreading and intensification of degradation processes in ecosystems. Conservation of lands, including the one carried out by means of foresting of degraded lands, is the principal way to renature environment. The article concerns an issue of land conservation in the context of ecosystem services of forests. The aim of the article is to assess the economic value of ecosystem services of forests in case of land conservation. To achieve the aim the authors developed a classification system of ecosystem services of forests according to their functional purposes; provide the calculation of prospective economic value of ecosystem services while foresting of a land plot with heavy eroded soil. The research was carried out using system, monographic and abstract-logical methods. The integral evaluation of prospective ecosystem services of forest in case of foresting of degraded land resulted in: minimum – 5. 07 thousand UAH per 1 ha in a year, maximum – 35. 91 thousand UAH per 1 ha in a year. The calculation of economic costs of ecosystem services should be applied for assessment of the economic value from protection of nature-protective areas as well as implementation of economic stimulation for land conservation.

The result of the long existence of legal restrictions on the agricultural land market in Ukraine was the formation of a specific leasehold system of land use. Agricultural enterprises and farms do not have land owned. Instead, the peasants who became owners of land during the distribution of collective farms, mostly do not process these parcels of land on their own, but also deprived of the right to alienate them (to sell, give, change). The study shows the development of leased land use of agricultural enterprises in Ukraine, which currently covers 16.8 million hectares of private land and about 1 million hectares of state-owned land. Since 2003, the civil law of Ukraine permitted to apply not only the lease of agricultural land, but also the emphyteusis right (the alienated right to use someone’s land for agricultural purposes), the process of transformation of lease into emphyteusis was started, especially in large agricultural holdings. The main advantages of emphyteusis as a substantive law and its attractiveness for agribusiness are considered. The suggestions on improving the legal regulation of land use under conditions of emphyteusis are given.

The study discusses the problem of financial impact on Wroclaw Municipality exerted by the costs of implementing decisions resulting from the selected local spatial development plans. Currently in Poland, at the stage of local spatial development plan establishment, a forecast of financial consequences is prepared. The expected own revenues and the costs of financial impact exerted on the municipal budget are presented in this document. The study facilitates making decisions about the final version of the local development plan. Taking into account the planned spatial development in the area of Wroclaw city, the urbanization costs exerting financial impact on the municipal budget were identified. The study analyses only the cost of implementing investments within the scope of the municipality own tasks, including the cost of constructing municipal roads, sanitary sewerage system, water supply system, public greenery facilities and land purchase for public investments. The analyses covered two selected areas of the city, located in its different parts. These are largely uninvested areas, predominantly constituting agricultural land, and such land development requires the construction of technical and social infrastructure facilities. The anticipated costs of implementing local development plans in force in various parts of Wroclaw indicate significant expenses to be covered by Wroclaw Municipality in order to build sewage systems and municipal roads. Taking up new development sites is also correlated with taking over the real properties by Wroclaw city, on which the implementation of public goals is planned.

The solution of preserving and restoring the soil fertility problem of agricultural lands in the process of economic activity is one of the main tasks in achieving global food security. Implementation of a complex of soil protection measures, as a rule, ensures the preservation and even growth of soil fertility. Therefore, the purpose of the article is to determine the economic efficiency of introducing soil protection measures in the use of agricultural land. For this purpose, the following tasks were set and solved: the analysis of the current state and trends of the land resources use in agriculture; to investigate the tendencies of carrying out measures on preservation of soil fertility and prevention of its degradation; to substantiate scientific and methodical estimation principles of economic efficiency of introduction of soil protection measures in the conditions of Ukraine. The following basic methods were used to solve the research objectives: monographic analysis – when developing scientific publications on environmentally friendly use of agricultural land; comparative and statistical analysis – in studying the dynamics of the structure of the land fund of Ukraine by main types of land and economic activity; system-structural analysis and grouping – in the study of the nature and content of ecological and economic consequences of soil degradation, as well as approaches to assessing the economic effectiveness of soil protection measures; economic analysis and calculation of relative indicators – to evaluate the economic efficiency of soil protection measures in the process of agricultural land use; abstract-logical method − for theoretical generalizations and conclusions formation, etc. Established that soil degradation is now one of the most important industrial and environmental issues, which is the main reason for the inability to achieve high rates of environmental and economic efficiency of land use in the future. It was also substantiated scientific and methodical approach to determining the economic efficiency of soil conservation measures in the current market conditions, which is based on the additional income that is received as a result of increase crop yields on protected lands. It is established that effective protection of soils from degradation is possible with the systematic implementation of soil protection measures complex, developed taking into account the specific natural and economic conditions of each region or agricultural enterprise. The priority directions of realization measures on land protection are given.

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.