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 article presents an analysis of changes in the agrarian landscape and the subdivision of its plots, using three Lithuanian municipalities as examples (Kaunas, Trakai and Šilutė). Statistical, comparative and multicriteria analysis methods were applied in the study. It was found that in all the studied municipalities, the area of the agrarian landscape was decreasing during the study period. The largest decreasing trends were in the municipality of Šilutė district, where the area covered by agrarian landscape decreased by more than 3%. At the same time, in the municipalities of Kaunas and Trakai districts, the area of agrarian landscape decreased quite evenly and did not reach 3%. It was also found that the number of agricultural holdings also decreased: by 27% in Kaunas district municipality and by over 33% in Trakai district municipality, but the area of agricultural holdings increased in all of the studied municipalities: in Kaunas district by over 5%, in Trakai district by over 37% and in Šilutė district by over 8%. The average size of a farm in Kaunas district remained rather stable, increasing by only 1%, in Šilutė district municipality the average farm size increased by more than 71% and in Trakai district municipality the tendency was the opposite, i.e. the average farm size decreased by more than 36%. The multicriteria analysis shows that the most common factors influencing changes in the agrarian landscape and its subdivision of plots vary between municipalities, but in general the following factors influence the changes in the agrarian landscape and its subdivision of plots: the land productivity score, the number of inhabitants, the distance to the centre of the city, the average size of the farms, the number of holdings, and the amount of land area occupied by bodies of water. The information collected and the results obtained show that in the municipalities analysed, the causes of change in the agrarian landscape and its subdivision of plots have a positive impact on the sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas.

Aspects and factors of agricultural land transformation are analysed in the work. Taking into account the world experience of land transformation, directions for improving the development and control system of land management projects implementation in Ukraine are offered. The compliance issue by land users with established types of agricultural land according to the data of state registers is highlighted. Nowadays, land management projects that provide ecological and economic substantiation of crop rotation and land management make it possible to develop environmentally safe and economically feasible land use projects. In production, the above-mentioned projects are sometimes used to transfer ecologically stabilizing lands (pastures and hayfields) to arable land. This is controversial to all recommendations, conventions and programs that emphasize the need for reduced ploughing of the territory. It is necessary to improve the control mechanisms of crop rotation and agrotechnical environmental protection measures. The introduction of land plots agricultural passports is an important but insufficient measure. The remote sensing data of the earth and the use of modern geoinformation technologies should become part of the state control over compliance with land management projects. There is already experience of using various indices at the state level to decipher agricultural crops. As a result of the research, we came to the conclusion that the use of land remote sensing data and modern geoinformation technologies in land management will make it possible to bring the indicators of ploughed areas to a rational level, while not creating artificial restrictions on economic activity. The methodical and regulatory acts for the development of land management projects, which regulate the size of the ecologically safe land area need improvement. agricultural lands transformation, land management project,

In Ukraine, intensive agricultural use involves a significant area of land with degraded and unproductive soils, which is economically impractical and ecologically dangerous. Part of the land was impacted by military activities. One of the tasks of sustainable development in Ukraine is to stop the process of land degradation, achieve a neutral level of land cover degradation, and promote the restoration of their productivity. This can be achieved by growing energy crops on degraded soils. Energy crops can grow on infertile soils and accumulate a significant amount of biomass, which is an important argument in favour of the development of green energy. The purpose of this study is to determine the specifics of planning work on the phytoremediation of degraded lands when using energy plants and the subsequent production of fuel pellets and briquettes. The focus is on measures to comply with the requirements for the content of pollutants in solid biofuels, which will be made from energetic plants used in the process of phytoremediation of degraded soils. The ratio of pollutant concentrations in soil and plants to their maximum permissible concentration in biofuel is proposed to be used at phytoremediation planning. This study substantiates recommendations for planning the phytoremediation of soils impacted by military activities using energy plants. These recommendations, in particular, concern: the choice of plant species; estimates of the duration of the phytoremediation process; application of precision farming methods in phytoremediation of lands; use of stochastic models of the phytoremediation process.

The paper’s main objective is to analyse the distribution of large farm plots and opportunities for their optimization. In the context of intensive changes in the management and use of agricultural land, it is particularly important to optimise the land holdings of large farms. Most large farms are characterised by a fragmented, uncompacted spatial distribution. 15 large farms were selected for analysis in Jonava municipality. There are 22 separate fields on average per holding, 2/3 of the farm centres (farmsteads) are located in large settlements, and 1/3 of the farm centres are located in one-farm settlements and in small villages. It was found that the average area of individually cultivated fields is 14.9 ha, and the average distance from the farmstead to the fields is 4.35 km. Land holdings are very fragmented – fragmentation coefficient K2 value range from 2.64 to 8.81 (average 3.62) for selected farms. It is proposed to draw up municipality land use planning schemes, which would project the prospective boundaries of land holdings, and to legalize by law the right of pre-emption for the farm owner to acquire the ownership of the plots of land to be sold within these boundaries in order to increase the compactness of farm land holdings. A state can facilitate sporadic land consolidation by farmers through the preparation of the proposed municipality land use planning schemes.

The purpose of the article is to present a combined approach that connects several methods and algorithms to increase the effectiveness of the geodetic network measurement structure for determining horizontal and vertical displacements of engineering objects. Determining the deformation of commercial objects and objects of practical value allows to assess their technical condition. In case of critical changes at such objects, appropriate planning of protection, reconstruction and modernization works is also provided and the negative impact of the environment and weather conditions is indicated. Regardless of the methods used, the measurement of movements and deformations of structures is always preceded by an analysis of the prevailing conditions, as well as a network of geodetic measurement determination and control. These analyses are carried out taking into account manufacturability, economy, and safe use of objects, human safety and environmental protection. The target function was defined, which in this case was chosen as the entropy of the geodesic observation network through the measurement of the parameters vector with true values. Analysing the structure of the control and measurement network and improving its efficiency by the number of necessary observations becomes important for determining reliable changes occurring at the object and the ability to conduct the necessary measurements in the shortest possible time. At the same time, the improved network structure should ensure the redundancy of observations made to match the geodetic network with the modified methods. The optimal number of observations in the geodetic network depended on the observation structure informativeness. During the research, it was noticed that the use of a combined approach will allow selecting only those observations that are the most informative. This will reduce the measurement time without reducing the accuracy of the received movements. The obtained results of the numerical analysis showed the performance of the offered solution for increasing the efficiency of the geodetic network structure formation. It also allows faster and more economical performance of engineering structures geodetic measurements.

This article analyses the issue of the inadequacy between the results of preliminary measurements performed during the land reform and results of cadastral measurements. The aim of the research is to analyse the change of areas of land parcels of Sakiai district, the mistakes which were made during the measurements and their causes, as well as to make the comparison between preliminary and cadastral measurements. The research methods are as follows: the review and analysis of scientific literature, the analysis of statistical data, the comparative analysis and the method of graphical modelling. The total area of analysed land parcels is 282718 m2. During the research, while comparing the preliminary data and the data of the measurements of land parcels obtained while performing cadastral measurements, it was established that an average increase of areas of land parcels is 0.0223 ha, decrease is 0.0034 ha, the total perimeter of all land parcels decreased by 24.9 m, the total area of arable land in land parcels increased by 0.1390 ha due to the increase of areas of land parcels, new mapped lands: tree and shrub plantations, grasslands, gardens. The average shift of turning points of land parcel boundaries in the locality after the performed cadastral measurements is 2.64 m. What is more, by applying some formulae, the accuracy of calculation of areas of land parcels was determined. It turned out that land parcels, which cover 96% of the area of the analysed land parcels, changed to the maximum permissible error of areas, and 4% exceeded the maximum permissible error. According to the data presented by the National Land Service it was established that 15% of the submitted cadastral files are not accepted. The most common causes are an inadequacy of land parcel boundaries to the documents of the planning of territories or the land holding projects (44%), mistakes in the preparation of files of cadastral data of land parcel, in the completing (23%), in the preparation of the land parcel plan (21%), and while filling in the form of land parcel cadastral data (13%).

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.

The priority objective of the residential urban areas development – to improve the quality of life, sustainable development principles in order to form compact urban areas and polycentric functionally and socially integrated urban and suburban structure with the help of efforts of general public institutions as well as natural and legal persons. A living area today must comply with the needs of population from various social layers, so, when planning residential areas, it is necessary to assess the varied potential of the population needs and the quality of life expression. Therefore the article seeks to find out attitudes to residents’ environment, development of social services network, infrastructure condition, functional and planned structure of the area. For the implementation of the objective, the programme in the research sites has been prepared. This programme allows multifaceted examination of existing residential areas, the assessment of their physical condition, public opinion, public needs, comments and suggestions of professionals. After analysing the results of the research and drafting conceptual principles, it can be stated that the future of Lithuanian residential districts and cities depends on the territorial spatial planning system, which is affected by the free market and democratic society. Territorial spatial planning of residential microdistricts or blocks is the key to building sustainable and attractive cities.

This research study explores urban planning for transport sustainability in two cities Kaunas (Lithuania) and Jelgava (Latvia). As part of the analyses, a transport sustainability was compared in relation to three main aspects – economy, environment and society. The aim of this research is to review the existing transport system in two cities – Kaunas and Jelgava, and to evaluate their sustainability in environmental, social and economic dimensions. The study is based on the information about configuration and location of the existing transport system in two cities – Kaunas and Jelgava. It is important to submit proposals to decision making bodies in order to improve sustainability of transport.