One of the cornerstones of sustainable use of land resources is the use of land resources for the identified needs. In every country it is needed to list the land according to the type of land use. Such function of land classification in Latvia is maintained by the classification of purpose of real property use. In a certain period of time needs of the specific purposes for which the land resources are used are changing, so the aim of this study is to research changes of areas of purpose of real property use in municipalities of Latvia. The analysis of purpose of use of real property in Latvia municipalities demonstrates the trend of decrease of agricultural land resource areas in proportion to the increase of forest land resource areas, excluding the region around Riga, where areas of agricultural land and forest land resources are decreasing, but residential land resource area for needs of development of capital is increasing.

Aim of the paper is to explore the possibilities of application of orthophoto maps in determination of land degradation. One of the forms of remote sensing is aerial photography. Orthophoto maps are made from aerial photography with specialized software orthophoto maps were analysed in perspective for several years – from 2005 to 2011.The results are based on the expert. With each year possibilities of application of orthophoto maps are expanding. During the research, data of survey and SWOT analysis of determination of land degradation by orthophoto maps. The study results prove that based on orthophoto maps mainly, it can be detected the following land degradation processes – agricultural land overgrowing with bushes and abandonment of built-up areas.

United States of America and European countries like Great Britain, Germany, Norway have long traditions in the development of scenic roads, special scenic routes for tourists, National Scenic Byway Programs. They have set criteria for road landscape planning and design, discussed the economic value of scenic roads. Scenic roads are also important for tourism, as well as visual and cultural countryside development in Latvia. Planning regions and regional communities in Latvia have strategic development plans and spatial plans. All of them include high value landscapes and protected, scenic territories. Some scenic roads are defined in these documents, but criteria for scenic road designation are set in every region individually. There are unlisted roads with high aesthetic value which could be protected. Common methods, criteria for the assessment of road landscapes and scenic road designation in Latvia are not developed. The aim of the research was to evaluate and understand the present situation of scenic roads in Latvia. An online questionnaire was carried out in order to find out peoples’ opinion about the road landscape quality. Spatial plans of regional communities and planning regions were examined. A field study of two sections of scenic roads was carried out. The research project was carried out from December 2014 to December 2015. Results show that current road landscape has a potential for development, and it needs improvements. The study gives a general insight into the scenic road situation in Latvia and provides basis for further research on scenic road planning and management.

From the 1920s through the 90s, most streams in Lithuania were channelized. Channelization is the deepening, clearing and straightening of meandering streambeds resulting increase of water flow velocity and the rate at which water drained away from agricultural land. Channelized and straightened streams have better hydrodynamic parameters and different morphological properties, but at the same time that caused more unfavourable conditions for natural biodiversity along stream beds and banks reducing the amount of vegetation which means less food and cover for wildlife. Most of West European countries have a good practice for restoring of channelized rivers. This experience is quite new in Lithuania and starting with pilot projects. The most important purpose of these projects is to choose the appropriate restoration measures and evaluate their effectiveness under conditions of dense channel network and tile drainage systems in Lithuania. Two channelized streams, selected for a pilot project are discussed in this paper. The main purpose is to restore stream meandering with minimal efforts allocating artificial obstructions at a right place and reach the necessary stream velocities to initiate the stream bed deformation. For this purpose detailed channel geometry data were collected and 1D hydrodynamic model applied. The results of different scenarios revealed that installed obstructions can accelerate deformations processes initiate the meandering process and at the same time it will not have any significant effect on the agricultural land along restored stream.

Peat is still mined in many parts of the world for production of peat substrates and energy. Many peatlands were affected by drainage in the past also for forestry and agricultural needs. Nowadays a raised attention to peatlands is focused, especially to drained peatlands due to their carbon reserves and their potential influence to the climate on the one hand, but on the other hand - due to raising awareness on protection of environment, habitats and biotopes. There are many examples on restoration activities in peatlands found worldwide, especially their water regime is the subject of regulation, which plays the major role to bring back original functions. In most cases in Latvia as the aim for protection and restoration of degraded peatlands was protection of EU biotopes and habitats. Of course, peatlands play an important role in emissions of the greenhouse gases CO2, CH4 and N2O, produced during mineralization of the drained peat organic matter. In literature, we can find only few cases where hydrological regimes are described for natural raised as well as restored block-cut peat extraction fields. This research analyses block-cut peat extraction field water level fluctuation influence on naturally raised bog hydrological regimes. Hourly data is analysed for six groundwater monitoring wells as well as for determination needs of water level fluctuations in excavated peat quarry as a response to precipitation.

The aim of the article is to ascertain the interaction between weather conditions and electric energy consumption in the Latvia household. The electric energy consumption data in the Saurieši village, Riga region, Latvia, for the year 2012 were collected, and the climate data for the same period including the duration of the sun-shine, ambient air temperature, precipitation intensity, and wind speed were obtained. The research hypothesis that there is strong relation between weather conditions and electric energy consumption was proved partially – there is rather strong correlation between household electric energy consumption and air temperature (r = 0.91), and medium correlation between household electric energy consumption and precipitation (r = 0.61), as well as between household electric energy consumption and duration of the sunshine (r = 0.67). Correlation found between weather conditions and electric energy consumption in the household allows to forecast the trends in energy consumption based on weather measurements, and even to use the weather forecasts for electric energy future demand trends development. The equations developed explain the household energy consumption patterns in Latvia with its geographical location and economic conditions, but the methodology developed can be applied for any region if necessary data are available.

Modern varieties developed under conventional plant breeding programs do not always perform well under organic and low-input growing conditions. Therefore, organic farmers need varieties adapted to variable environmental conditions. This means emphasis on traits such as nutrient uptake and use efficiency, good weed suppression ability and disease resistance and can be achieved via extended genetic diversity within the varieties: variety mixtures and populations of self-pollinating crops. The aim of the present study was to review published scientific literature about importance and research results on this topic. Scientific articles about the necessity of such studies and results of investigations performed in different countries have been studied. The main results show that variety mixtures have advantages in terms of disease control and yield stabilization and performance of mixtures may be affected by various factors – choice of components and its number, interactions between plants of components, manner of the mixing and growing technology. Depending on parental material, populations contain greater genetic diversity than variety mixtures. There are trends observed in the studies that yield of populations increased over generations and they are more stable than modern varieties, but there is no evidence that they would be significantly more productive. This research direction has recently become topical and is not sufficiently widely covered in the world agricultural science. The obtained results are inconsistent.

The objective of the study was to detect the difference of the conformation scores between dams and daughters in Latvian Warmblood horse breed. For this purpose the correlations and regression coefficient between conformation traits of broodmares and the same traits of their daughters were estimated. Data of Latvian Warmblood horse breed broodmares were analyzed. The horse breeding organisations’ evaluating data from 1995 till 2015 were analyzed. The data included conformation valuation of Latvian Warmblood horse breed dams (n = 423) and their daughters (n = 596) of different ages. An average in ten-point scale in the group of dams was 7.71 ± 0.04 for top line scoring, 7.33 ± 0.05 for forelimbs and 7.35 ± 0.05 points for hind limbs. An average of valuation points of their daughters was 7.51 ± 0.03 for top line scoring, 7.21 ± 0.04 for forelimbs and 7.21 ± 0.04 for hind limbs. A significant difference between valuations of dams and their daughters (p0.05) was found for all three conformation traits. Positive and low correlation was calculated between groups of dams and daughters for all three conformation traits. The results show that the relationship between conformation traits of dams and daughters was weak. Further studies are needed in order to estimate influence of broodmare quality to daughters, analyzing the latest data of progeny.

The article analyses the data obtained while evaluating red deer calves on the red deer breeding farm ‘Dumpji’ during the herd’s annual prophylactic check-up in December and April of the years 2013 and 2014. Farm is a private enterprise owned by a company located in Northern Latvia. The study comprises data for calves born in 2013 (n = 36) that were born from the same hinds, but from different stags in consecutive years. It was discovered that the calves’ liveweight gain in 24 hours significantly decreases during wintering period. After the wintering smaller body mass was observed in calves of both sexes born in 2014; however, the body mass of bull calves born in both years of reference considerably exceeded that of the hind calves. In the group of hind calves born in both years of the study period the liveweight loss was observed during the wintering. Nevertheless, at the age of 1.5 years the lowest liveweight among hind calves was 82.4 kg (year 2013), and the highest 129.6 kg (year 2014). In the group of spikers, during the winter period liveweight loss was not observed. Analysis of the results revealed a close positive correlation between the liveweight in December and the liveweight in the spring among spikers and heifers alike. The conducted analysis of influencing factors attests to the fact that the liveweight at the age of six months has material impact on the animals’ liveweight both in the spring and at the age of 1.5 years.

The aim of this review was to summarize available bibliography on the possible applications of high pressure processing in dairy industry, the effect of this non-thermal treatment on bacterial microflora and milk constituents. Traditional thermal treatments applied to milk processing lower nutritional quality because many nutrients are heat labile. To overcome this problem, several non-thermal processing technologies including high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) processing have been developed. Pressures between 400 and 600 MPa inactivate microorganisms including food-borne pathogens; however, high pressure (HP) injured bacteria in milk during storage can recover. All enzymes are inactivated only at pressures of 800 MPa. During HHP the casein micelle size decreases, whey proteins are denaturated, the level of free fatty acids increases. These characteristics indicate that for better understanding and application of HPP in dairy industry research should be done to offer the numerous practical applications to produce microbially safe, minimally processed dairy products with improved performances, and to develop novel dairy products of high nutritional and sensory quality and increased shelf life.