Declaration data of farming land and crop are analyzed in the article. Ukmergė district is chosen for the more detailed analysis. Statistical data of farmers and other land users are analyzed in the article; the declaration data of farming land and crop are analyzed and mathematical statistical dependence between the declared area and soil productivity index is determined. The results show that there are 2,506 registered farms in Ukmergė district and they manage the area of 18,430.07 hectares. The average parcel size amount to 7.35 ha. The number of farming persons in Ukmergė district as well as in Lithuania have considerably decreased during 7 years period. In 2014, the number of farming persons was by 38.12 percent smaller in Ukmergė district and by 41.24 percent in the whole territory of Lithuania compared to 2007. The comparison of the declaration data of 2011 with the data of 2014 shows that the declared area of farming land and crop in Ukmergė district has increased by 2.46 percent although the number of received applications has decreased by 22.2 percent. During the period of 2011– 2014 the majority of assessed applications were received in 2013, i.e., 99.04 percent of all applications received that year. It shows that the size of land parcels has increased. Cereal crops (oat, wheat, triticale, barley, rye, buckwheat and corn) composed the major part of the declared areas in Ukmergė district in 2013-2014 (48.84 percent of all declared crops in 2013 and 53.79 percent in 2014). The analysed agricultural holding “Egvila” during 2011–2014 period declared the area of approximately 272 hectares annually. This company grows white clover for seed, timothy for seed and cumin. Direct payments are received for all land areas. The analysis shows that farmers generally declared their own land. The analysis of the declared land distribution in Ukmergė district by land property right shows that 75 percent of the declared land are private and the remaining 25 percent are leased either from the state or from natural persons.

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) services in Latvia nowadays provide not only for a variety of navigation and surveying needs, but also they are used in agricultural production. The time period when satellite navigation systems equipment and services in agricultural businesses appeared in Latvia and were treated as objects of interest and research has passed. GNSS equipment and enabling modules are purchased, installed and used in agricultural equipment extending their capabilities. A growing number of entrepreneurs provide for this service segment. In the publication of 2014, the authors pointed out that a preparatory and investigation phase in using precision farming systems (including GNSS technology related to them) in Latvia has come to an end transforming into massive practical implementation in the process of agricultural business. The analysis of the obtained information confirmed that during the last year further satellite navigation technology usage in agricultural machinery has grown from simple and approximate level usage to high accuracy and stability navigation services. Growth dynamics and its further development forecasted earlier by the authors coincided with the last year’s actual development indicators of a stable and growing demand for global navigation system services for farming machinery and technical solutions for their user segment. The aim of the article is to justify the forecast expressed in the last year’s publication regarding the increase of the use of precision farming systems thus confirming the fact that their application has moved from a research phase to massive practical implementation and operation in agricultural production.

The article reveals difficulties to make managerial decisions as to optimization of recreational objects’ location considering economic and technological parameters of an impact with application of fuzzy modelling. The authors propose methods of evaluation of alternative variants of managerial decision making applying programs of Mathcad with the further prospect of choosing alternatives.

In order to preserve protected areas and to reduce their devastation, it is important to know the most common violations of these areas. The created map will provide the information about areas where the damage occurs most often. The Nemunas Loops Regional Park was selected for the research, the main aim of which was to identify the most common violations and the most problematic areas. The objectives of this research were to carry out a detailed analysis of violations in the Nemunas Loops Regional Park and protected areas for 2007- 2014 period of time and to create a dot distribution map of these violations. The main tasks were the following: 1) to review the aim of the Nemunas Loops Regional Park establishment, prohibited and promotional activities, 2) to carry out the classification of violations in these areas during 2007-2013 according to the Code of Administrative Offences of the Republic of Lithuania, 3) to group the violations of 2007-2013 according to the timing and to create a dot distribution map in order to provide its application possibilities. The study led to the following conclusions: most violations were made contrary to the requirements of the protected areas (Clause 76). For instance, arbitrary constructed mobile homes, environmental pollution, violations of visiting regime in the nature reservation, water protection requirements (Clause 55), parking a car in the protected area of the water reservoir, agricultural land, storing agricultural equipment which is not used etc. The map highlights the most problematic areas where violations occur every year. These are: Punios Šilas Strict Nature Reserve and the areas around it, Pociūnai and Balbieriškis towns, Birštonas. In 2014 the form of reports was changed and it was not possible to analyse the violations in detail. It was a negative factor for this research because no accurate violations and areas could be recorded. For this reason the map was not created. 230 various violations happened in the Nemunas Loops Regional Park during the period of 2007-2014. The created map can be used as an additional measure for prevention of violations.

The article presents the Lithuanian forest land change in the period of more than a hundred years. The causes leading to forest land use change are analysed in the article. The beginning of forestry in Lithuania can be traced back to Sigismund Augustus times starting from 1557, when Wallach reform was launched. However, over time forest land and its use evolved for a variety of political, social and economic factors. In 1795 the state-owned forests in Lithuania amounted to 35% of the total area of forests; other forests were owned by landlords, churches and kulak farms. Later forests were cut down quite rapidly, many of them burned down, but reforestation work was insignificant. The smallest forest coverage during the analysed period was in 1945, just 16.5%. Forests were thinned out, wastelands and waterlogged areas dominated. Later, albeit with different variations, the forest coverage of Lithuania increased and today forest area accounts for more than 34% of the total area of the country, the majority of which are private forests. More detailed characteristics of forest land use and user trends as well as their causes are presented in the article. It also looks at the possible prospects.

Agricultural land is one of the most valuable natural resources which can be found in Latvia, since agricultural land has long time served as an important resource of economic activity and food production. Efficient use of this valuable resource depends not only on technologies and knowledge at disposal of farmers but also on regulations concerning the real estate market and taxation of the real estate. Recent changes of the real estate market regulation as concerns agricultural land are analysed in this paper to identify a possible influence on the use of agricultural land.

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.

In the Western region of Ukraine, melioration is both of economic and social importance. The area of reclaimed lands constitutes 2.2 million ha or 24 % of the total agricultural lands in the region. Thus, melioration is of great importance for social-economic development of agro-industrial complex of the territory. Under conditions of the land reform in Ukraine, reclaimed lands were subjected to sharing and privatization causing a negative impact on efficiency of its utilization and technical conditions of the reclaimed land infrastructure. The aim of the research is to analyze conditions and suggest practical recommendations as to rise of productivity of reclaimed lands, peculiarities of land organization on privatized reclaimed areas, consolidation of shared lands within the boundaries of acting drainage systems. Timeliness of the research is connected with the issues of improvement of agricultural utilization and protection of drained lands of the region. The authors used economic-statistical, monographic and logistic methods in the research. The example of Lviv region was used to analyse conditions and problems of reclaimed lands of western regions of Ukraine under conditions of land relations’ transformation. It is mentioned that only 70 % of drained areas feature satisfactory water-air regime of soil for cultivation of agricultural crops. Prospects of an increase of their utilization efficiency are connected with reconstruction of the systems consolidating common technological melioration complexes, support of both-side regulation of soil humidity.

From a theoretical point of view, the authors have grounded a new paradigm of theoretical planning of land management, which is based on space definition of a complex of factors of rational use of the existing land resources in correlation of interests of subjects-land-users and corresponding land relations in the terms of support of a balanced social-ecologic-economic environment. From a methodological point of view, the authors have proposed a set of methodic approaches as to determination of mechanisms of arrangement of the process of territorial planning in land management according to institutional fundamentals of land relations harmonization at different space levels of management. It is proposed to consider planning of land use as an obligatory and logically inevitable stage of the process of territorial space management that is determined as a primary link, because it specifies aims of the management. It is proved that effective territorial management of land resources and land-use is caused by its territorial planning, which determines the aims of an object development and activity of a managerial subject. A regional link of management should secure the supply of appropriate conditions for living standards of population, effective utilization of territorial resources and development of mutually favorable inter-regional relations. Implementation of efficient regional policy on the basis of market mechanisms requires further improvement of institutional fundamentals.

The search of effective methods of agricultural land protection from soil erosion under conditions of land relations’ reform in Ukraine is a complex ecological and economic issue requiring a system approach to its solution, adequate organizational and economic support and scientific argumentation. The topicality of the research is based on the importance of the problem of arable land protection from soil erosion, and its solution is related to ecologically safe land utilization keeping to the principles of balanced development of land management. The aim of the research is to develop scientific basis for the recommendations how to improve the system of erosion-safe agricultural land management under conditions of reforming land relations in Ukraine. The article presents scientific fundamentals of organization of erosion-safe land management in the context of the balanced development of nature management, analyses conditions of utilization and protection of land in erosion-unsafe landscapes; develop scientifically grounded recommendations as to improvement of a system of erosion-safe agricultural land management at a local level. In the process of the investigation a combination of methods were used: monographic, induction and deduction methods, system analysis, cartographic, experimental projecting. A contour organization of the territory is recommended to apply to protect arable land from soil erosion. Reimbursement of money payments and tax privileges can motivate landowners and land users to introduce anti-erosion measures. It is required to consider use value and non-use value of land resources in the process of their estimation for land payments.