The changes in the ownership structure were to be implemented by the Agricultural Property Agency of the State Treasury, which, under the Act of Law of 11 April 2003 on the structuring of agrarian system (i.e. The Journal of Laws of 2012, item 803, as amended), on 16 July 2003 became the Agricultural Property Agency with eleven local branch offices. For the purposes of this article the monographic method was used for the overview of relevant literature and legal provisions, whereas the statistical analysis was employed in the data of the Central Statistical Office and reports on the activities of the Agricultural Property Agency. Until the end of 2015 the main objective of the Agricultural Property Agency was to restructure and dispose of the assets within the Agricultural Property Stock of the State Treasury. Since its foundation, the Agency expanded the Stock by 4.74 million ha. Over time, the operating conditions for the Agency were in a state of flux – they were being adjusted to the changing socio-economic situation. At the beginning, leasing was the basic form of disposal of the Stock land. After Polish accession to the European Union an increased interest in the acquisition of agricultural property was observed. By the end of 2014, as a result of land sale, free-of-charge land transfers or other transactions, approximately 3.2 million ha were disposed of, i.e. about 70% of the whole land which was taken over. Currently, according to the legal provisions, long-term lease is the basic form of disposal of the Stock land.

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.

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%).

The aim of the article is to discuss practical issues of establishing the access to land property during the land reform as well as today, and to propose solutions to the identified problems. The methods of research include the analysis of scientific literature and legal acts as well as the case study and the analysis of documents. In this article several proposals are made. It is proposed that the law should include the condition that the establishment of servitudes is allowed only in rural areas and only as an exception if the access from the state or municipal road cannot be granted. The legal solution must be found for the servitudes without the dominant property which have been established during the land reform. The right for local authorities to determine the dominant property should also be considered. The suggestions may be used to elaborate legislative proposals.

Scientific and technological progress does not bypass any industry, including the agro-industrial complex. With the development of technologies for remote sensing of the Earth, obtaining relevant information about the availability of objects of their condition and use, the introduction of advanced technologies and modern equipment in agriculture, the automation of land management processes, including land management, becomes urgent. Analysis of existing geoinformation systems allows us to conclude that the task of geoinformation support of land management in full in the form of an independent geoinformation system is absent. At the same time, in the considered complexes, there is a solution to certain land management tasks, such as the creation of digital maps of fields, anti-erosion organization of the territory, the construction of digital relief models, correction of soil maps based on satellite images, etc. The purpose of the article is to analyze information sources in the field of geoinformation support of the land management process in the Republic of Belarus, to identify tasks for the development of a comprehensive methodology for the implementation of digital land management in the Republic of Belarus.

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.

In Ukraine, degradation of land resources is a complex ecological problem, preventing sustainable development of land employment. Land protection from degradation requires development of measures in the process of land management at regional and local levels. Efficiency of the measures depends considerably on reliable information about quantitative and qualitative conditions of lands, due to the fact that it forces timeliness of the research. The aim of the research is to study problems of land degradation in terms of land management while developing measures of land resource protection. To reach this aim, the following tasks were set out: to analyse the drawbacks of informational support in terms of land management fulfilment at the current stage of land relations development; to describe prospective ways to implement the measures on land protection from degradation in Ukraine. Methodological basis of the research is includes the method of system analysis (performed while studying the process of land resource degradation) and cartographic method (employed while detecting the spread of degradation processes and its drawbacks in land employment). The research has determined that soil maps and plans of employment of lands do not provide reliable information about quantitative and quantitative conditions of land resources. The existing organisation of land use, first arable one, does not always correspond to soil-conserving requirements. It is proposed: to update plan-cartographic material based on space images and data of agrochemical classification of agricultural lands; to establish efficient organisational and economic mechanisms to implement ecological policy in the field of land management.

According to the fast development and distribution of GNSS technologies all over the world, the large numbers of reference GNSS stations have appeared in Ukraine. These stations are included in the state and several private networks. The permanent GNSS observations gathered within these networks are processed and analysed by the Centre of Lviv Polytechnic National University. A cumulative solution (coordinates expressed at the specified epoch and velocities of all stations) was estimated by using the GAMIT-GLOBK software. The authors made several numerous tests using certain configuration of fiducial stations which belong to the EPN A class to transfer ITRF08 frame into Ukraine area and choose the best strategy of alignment of the Ukrainian national GNSS network to the EPN. Three different solutions with cretin tolerance set for Ukrainian GNSS network were estimated and each time the different set of coordinates was obtained. The differences reached several millimetres. Also for verification, our solution was compared with EPN solution. Received coordinates and velocities could have a geophysical interpretation and provide very useful information for local geodesy tasks.

Land consolidation – an important stage of agricultural and rural development. This is a significant land use planning process, when private, municipal and state land parcels located in rural areas are redistributed in a complex way, their boundaries and location are changed by the prepared land consolidation project of a certain area. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the benefits of land consolidation to farm structure and productivity, restructuring of rural areas and development, but there is not enough emphasis on the benefits of our environment, landscape and biodiversity. Experience of European countries shows that the land consolidation projects can be useful not only for farmers, but also for our environment and its individual components. The article gives an overview of not only the positive aspects of environmental preservation. The fact that the land consolidation projects can bring negative results (i.e. that they are implemented without regard to the sustainable transformation of the territory) is noted as well.

The article presents the comparative analysis of the Kaunas city anthropogenic landscape change during the period between 2006 and 2014. For this analysis the land fund statistics of the Republic of Lithuania were used. The components of anthropogenic landscape change are graphically shown in the figures. During the analysis the Kaunas city statistics were compared with the data of Kaunas County and the Republic of Lithuania. Comparative, analytical as well as statistical and logical analysis methods were used for the investigation. The object of the investigation is anthropogenic components of Kaunas city. The aim of the investigation is to carry out the analysis of the change of Kaunas city anthropogenic components in the period of 2006-2014. The work analyses the change of urban landscape components, the reasons of the established change. The built up territories comprise the majority of anthropogenic landscape of Kaunas city i.e. 90.05 per cent, while the damaged territories make up 0.06 per cent and Kaunas city roads constitute 9.89 per cent of the analysed landscape. It was established that during the analysed period the built-up territories of Kaunas city increased by 312.78 ha i.e. 3.53 per cent. Within 9 years the road area increased by 14.04 ha or 1.44 per cent, while the damaged areas increased by 1.89 ha. Having analysed the statistical data of Kaunas city anthropogenic landscape areas it was estimated that within the period of 2006 -2014 the area of these territories increased by 328.71 ha or 3.34 per cent. e area of these territories increased by 328.71 ha or 3.34 per cent.