Land consolidation is an important stage for agriculture and rural development. During the land reform, parcels of irrational size and shape were formed, which became difficult to cultivate efficiently. In essence, land consolidation projects must primarily be developed in areas with large, viable farms, and land parcels forming land holdings are not compact, distant from each other and from centres. Land consolidation projects have been under development for many years, but it is appropriate to pay attention to the expediency of implemented projects. Land consolidation goals and procedures vary from country to country, as the development of this procedure in each country is determined by historical trends, culture, traditions and land consolidation legislation. Many of those who have analysed this topic emphasize the need for consolidation, but it is very important that landowners understand the importance of this process and make sure of its opportunities and benefits. Land consolidation must be designed so that the benefits of the project are higher than the results of the conversion works before the project. The purpose of this article is to compare land consolidation projects which were prepared in different areas of Lithuania. Two objects of the research in which land consolidation projects had been carried out and implemented in 2013 were selected, where the number of sites in units decreased: 41.8% in one project and 28% in the other. Changes in parcel configuration were also noticeable, when in one of the projects analysed even 92 per cent of land parcels have become regular − close to rectangular − shapes. The average size of land parcels in this project increased from 5.32 ha to 9.14 ha.

The study discusses the problem of financial impact on Wroclaw Municipality exerted by the costs of implementing decisions resulting from the selected local spatial development plans. Currently in Poland, at the stage of local spatial development plan establishment, a forecast of financial consequences is prepared. The expected own revenues and the costs of financial impact exerted on the municipal budget are presented in this document. The study facilitates making decisions about the final version of the local development plan. Taking into account the planned spatial development in the area of Wroclaw city, the urbanization costs exerting financial impact on the municipal budget were identified. The study analyses only the cost of implementing investments within the scope of the municipality own tasks, including the cost of constructing municipal roads, sanitary sewerage system, water supply system, public greenery facilities and land purchase for public investments. The analyses covered two selected areas of the city, located in its different parts. These are largely uninvested areas, predominantly constituting agricultural land, and such land development requires the construction of technical and social infrastructure facilities. The anticipated costs of implementing local development plans in force in various parts of Wroclaw indicate significant expenses to be covered by Wroclaw Municipality in order to build sewage systems and municipal roads. Taking up new development sites is also correlated with taking over the real properties by Wroclaw city, on which the implementation of public goals is planned.

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.

With growing importance of the global economy, one of the basic natural resources − intensity of land use − is also increasing, which often is the cause of land degradation processes. The causes and manifestations of brownfields are diverse, and their elimination is the first prerequisite for the sustainable use of land resources and development of each region. Improvement, maximal and efficient engagement in economic activity of brownfields is one of the key challenges for sustainable resource use that makes significant contribution to regional development. The reuse of brownfields has significant impact on sustainable development as it meets all three of its objectives: improving the economy, improving social cohesion and the environment. The aim of the article is on the basis of special literature examples to examine issues of sustainable development, evaluation and restoration of brownfields, transformation of brownfields into recreational areas, as well as further use of brownfields in cities and rural areas.

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.

With recent advances in aerial data acquisition technologies from aircraft and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) very large datasets can be collected rapidly, covering significant surfaces with centimetre-scale resolution, with the consequence possibility to analyse geological structures of coastal areas within those datasets digitally. The monitoring of erosion mechanisms in fact requires high standards of precision to appreciate their effects. With the availability of a regular coastal monitoring programme being carried out in a large territory, UAVs can replace many of the conventional flights, with considerable advantages in the cost of data acquisition and without any loss in the quality of topographic and aerial imagery data. Several works in literature have been focused on finding an effective and sustainable survey strategy to limit costs and work times. However, it is necessary to refine the photogrammetric mapping process to optimize its geometrical accuracy and ensure the multi-temporal and multi-scaling repeatability of final products. The aim of this work is to test the accuracy obtainable from various photogrammetric workflows concerning the 3D modelling of a coastline area that is subject to hydrogeological instability. To this purpose, a set of image data acquired with a UAV, equipped with a non-metric camera and a low-accuracy GNSS/INS receiver, was processed. To maintain and test the accuracy of the whole process, an adequate number of Ground Control Points (GCPs) was acquired by means of a high precision GNSS surveying.

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.

The issues of environmental protection, prevention of degradation and reclamation of damaged land are currently very significant and relevant. As damaged land has been observed the land where low productivity and low economic potential have arisen and natural productivity of ecosystems is changed due to human-caused activities. The nature and extent of the violation depends on the type, depth and duration of anthropogenic impact, on adopted system of work organization and the conditions of the environment. Black soil dominates in the soil cover in Samara region; therefore there has been developed agricultural production. However there are located large oilfields and gas fields, which are under active exploitation and reduction of vegetation, dumping technological sites, laying trenches for pipelines, etc. have been noticed, which leads to formation of technogenic soils, damaged land cover, loss of soil fertility and land use type change. There special restoration measure − reclamation should be putted into practice on the territory of all categories of land, but especially on agricultural land. The aim of the article is to study the situation with damaged agricultural land in Samara region of Russia and to develop scientifically based proposals for regeneration of its fertility after reclamation measures. The problems of pollution of agricultural land in the region have been investigated, main sources and types of pollution have been analysed, as well as legal, methodological and environmental protection documents on land reclamation have been studied. The peculiarities of reclamation of land on federal, municipal and property level have been considered. The article presents measures for reclamation of the land on the example of natural monopolies in the territory of the Samara region.

For millennia, the geodesic industry has improved methods and technologies for obtaining information on the location of objects on the Earth's surface, whose key task has been to improve the accuracy and reliability of measurements. At the same time, in recent decades, the rapid development of positioning technologies based on satellite radio navigation systems has created prerequisites for a situation where the acceptable accuracy of determining the geodetic characteristics of real estate becomes quite affordable even when using non-specialized geodetic equipment, including personal mobile devices. The article shows that the error in determining the area of land for registration of rights to real estate has its own “costˮ, which depends on the value of real estate in the area of survey. By the example of model sites, it is shown that further improvement of the accuracy of engineering surveying to determine the spatial characteristics of real estate objects would be economically feasible only if the cost of geodetic surveys (including the cost of purchasing new geodetic equipment, payment for labour of specially trained engineers, additional technical services and etc.) will not exceed the “cost of errorˮ to determine the area of the site. Using the example of Ukraine, it is shown that the most accurate geodetic surveys (determining turning points of land borders with an accuracy of more than 0.02 m) are economically feasible only when the market value of a land plot exceeds USD 208 per square meter.