The aim of the article is to analyse the land use of selected areas and its impact on the ecological condition of the area. 3 (Ignalina, Molėtai and Zarasai) from 15 districts (which are characterized by considerable forest cover and exceptional recreational characteristics) of Lithuania were selected as the object of research. The largest part of the area of these districts (44–57%) consists of agricultural areas; a slightly smaller area (32–42%) is occupied by forests and other natural areas. Artificial covers occupy from 8 to 11 percent of the total area of districts. Analysing the change of these land cover areas over a period of 12 years, a practically stable (4-6%) decrease of agricultural areas and growth of forests and other natural areas (3–5%) as well as artificial covers (1%) in all three municipalities are observed. Taking into account the prevailing land cover structure in the districts in 2018, the estimated degree of polarization of all districts/ecological stability indicator of the area exceeded 0.67, i.e., areas have been found to be ecologically stable. However, after assessing the ecological stability of the surveyed areas using a multi-criteria analysis method and introducing more criteria influencing the ecological condition of the area, not only the land cover structure, it was found that the ecological condition of Molėtai district is still the worst according to the ranking indicators, while that of Zarasai and Ignalina districts is very similar. Such a negative multi-criteria assessment of the ecological condition of Molėtai district was influenced by all criteria: lower area of protected and natural territories, forests in the district, higher population density, road length, area of artificial covers and emissions (carbon monoxides, nitrogen oxides, etc.) quantity. Meanwhile, when assessing the ecological condition of Ignalina district, 4 criteria were favourable, namely: relatively low population density, road length, and lower emissions of gases and liquids, carbon monoxide, and for Zarasai district 7 criteria: higher areas of protected territories, forests and other natural, agricultural areas as well as artificial cover areas and lower population density, emissions of nitrogen oxides, gaseous and liquid substances. The results of the study unambiguously revealed that the ecological stability of the territory is influenced not only by the land use structure, but also by other environmental elements related to the area, therefore for full sustainable development, it is necessary to responsibly assess all possible factors influencing the ecological condition of the area.

Starting in 2016, the process of financial decentralization began in Ukraine, in which local governments of lower levels (rural, urban, city councils and united territorial communities) were entitled to independently establish on their territory the rates of many local taxes and fees credited to community budgets. In particular, tax legislation of Ukraine allows local governments to vary land tax rates in the range from 0.1 to 3% of the normative monetary valuation of land, as well as to differentiate tax rates depending on the type of intended use of land plots. The study created a database and analysed the spatial heterogeneity of land tax rates in more than 9.6 thousand communities. It is shown how the level of tax burden on land owners and land users, established by local self-government bodies, correlates with the economic development of the regions, as well as the normative monetary valuation of land, which is used in Ukraine as a tax base. The problems of taxation of real estate, which arise at the separate collection of land tax and tax for real property other than land, are considered, as well as suggestions on the necessity of introduction of tax zoning of territories in Ukraine, which will allow to further differentiate the rates of taxes on the property and provide more flexible and adaptive taxation of real estate.

One of the main groups in agriculture is plant cultivation. The crop production combines growing of grain, cotton, vegetable, viticulture, tobacco cultivation, etc. One of the main factors in the activities of plant-growing as well as in grain-growing is the efficient using of land. Agriculture is characterized by number of specific socio-economic, natural and technological characteristics. Unlike other sectors of the economy, the main means of production is land. Land differs from other agricultural production facilities. Land is not a product of human activity, it is the product of nature. The land area cannot be increased nor decreased as other means of production, its natural fertility and productivity can be increased. Land area has been divided into zones according to its location, quality and rating. Agricultural farming on unfavourable land areas requires more funds than on favourable land plots. In the article, using grain crops efficiency data, increase of soil fertility and issues in the direction of increasing productivity facing entrepreneurial farms were studied.

According to the official statistics the areas of abandoned agricultural land in Lithuania are gradually decreasing, but very slightly. The aim of this study is to research spatial determination and abandoned land classification in the territory of Vilnius District Municipality. Vilnius District Municipality was chosen for the research because it, although located near the capital of the country and has a high population density, it is still the district having the largest percent of abandoned land plots. A fast, cost-effective and sufficiently accurate method for determination of abandoned land plots would allow to constantly monitoring, to fix changes and foresee the abandoned land plots reduction possibilities. In the study there was used the multispectral RGB and NIR colour Sentinel-2 satellite images, the layer of the administrative boundary of Vilnius County and layer of abandoned agriculture land, which is available in Lithuanian Spatial Information Portal (www.geoportal.lt). The data was processed by Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques using classical classification Region Growing Algorithm. The research shows that NIR image classification result is more reliable than the result from RGB images.

This article reviews the initiatives for setting up rational use and protection of agricultural lands in order to ensure accelerated growth of the agricultural sector of the Russian Federation, enhancing its sustainability, efficiency, competitiveness, and environmental safety. It is hereby proposed to complete the differentiation of public lands into federal property, property of the subjects of the Russian Federation, property of municipal settlements; as well as to conduct topographic survey of lands in the Russian Federation (to establish and locally document the boundaries of territories of the subjects of the Russian Federation; municipal settlements; communities; special-purpose lands; areas with special land use conditions; and to systematically (once every 5 years) perform agricultural land inventory in order to identify unused, irrationally used or non-purposely used lands, as well as land use in violation of the relevant permitted use of land plots; to relaunch land survey works relating with the performance of pedologic, geobotanical and other studies and research.

The article highlights the issue of accuracy of determining of the zones of restricted use of the territories along the transmission lines taking into account the magnetic field influence around the wires of transmission line during the passage of electric current. The procedure of establishing of such zones near transmission lines requires a clear substantiation of limits of physical parameters of the electric and magnetic fields` influence of transmission lines on human resources and environment that leads to the establishment of scientifically based boundaries of safe and rational management of land use. The authors` task was the substantiation of a mathematical expression that describes the relationship between the accuracy of determining the radius of dissemination of the magnetic field along the transmission lines and physical parameters of the magnetic field. As a result of the conducted research the formulas for determining the standard deviation (SD) of the radius of dissemination of the magnetic field were presented taking into account the value of magnetic induction, capacity, voltage and amperage that were inherent to the particular transmission line.

Having analysed research results, it is ensured that sustainable land use of US agricultural lands for the support to farmers to improve the efficiency of their major activities and adherence to the principles of soil protection and rational land use in farms. An analysis of the American experience allows us to make conclusions that the success of the process of improving land relations depends on the level of their scientific validity, the degree of balance of government regulation and the degree of coordination of participants’ interests in transformations and land market transactions. Land lease in the United States of America as one of the economic methods of land use regulation has been analysed in the article. It has been established that long-term lease relations are beneficial for both parties concerning soil improvement and pollution control in case of clear legislation. Having analysed foreign experience, the main measures of land use rationalization in the USA, which people can use in Ukraine, have been proposed. It is also possible to implement the US experience in actively controlling the ecological condition, intended use and other quality characteristics of agricultural land to improve regulation of land use in Ukraine. After analysing the measures for land protection in the United States, taking into account the considered and researched American experience of agricultural land use, ways to improve the existing system of use and protection of agricultural land in Ukraine are proposed.

Land use regulation is one of the most important state tasks and is aimed to ensuring the sustainable development of settlements. One of the mechanisms to solve this task is land use limitations establishment by restricted the possibility to carry out some activities, on certain territories or separate land plots, which would lead to negative ecological and social consequences. Such activity is becoming more and more urgent in the face of increasing ecological problems. Land use limitations could be considering in different areas. On one hand, the feasibility of land use is governing by the methods of spatial planning, based on natural and anthropogenic conditions. On the other hand, land use limitations are the result of location of object is which could be either source of negative influence or the object is requiring being protected (mode-forming objects). The aim of the article is to determine the impact of land use limitations on the various components of society, taking into account the environmental, economic and social components of sustainable development. Environmental and socioeconomic impact of land use limitations formation on the example of limitations caused by the activity of a mode-forming object is described in the study. The results of the study illustrate that the establishment of limitations on the land use can solve mainly environmental and social problems.

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.

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.