The relevance of the study is determined by the need to improve the institutional framework for environmentally oriented land use in Ukraine under conditions of intensifying environmental challenges, land degradation, and the consequences of military actions. The purpose of the study is to provide a theoretical and methodological substantiation and to improve methodological approaches to the institutional assessment of environmentally oriented land use at different hierarchical levels. The methodological basis of the research comprises the dialectical method of cognition, systemic and comprehensive approaches, as well as the provisions of institutionalevolutionary theory and the theory of state regulation. The assessment was carried out through the analysis of formal and informal rules and the determination of the completeness of institutional provision in the regulatory and legal, integration and project-based, organizational, and financial and economic dimensions. The essence of environmentally oriented land use is substantiated as a process of utilizing the integrated potential of a territory that combines economic objectives with the maintenance and restoration of the ecological functions of land. It has been established that the institutional provision of such land use encompasses interrelated components of land-use regulation and environmental safety. For assessment purposes, a system of indicators differentiated by the national, regional, and territorial community levels was developed. According to the calculations, the completeness of institutional provision for environmentally oriented land use amounts to 26%, 31%, and 27%, respectively. The obtained values indicate insufficient development, compatibility, and continuity of institutional provision across hierarchical levels. The proposed approach makes it possible to identify problematic components of the institutional environment and to determine directions for its improvement. Further research should focus on deepening the qualitative assessment of the institutional environment of environmentally oriented land use.
Russia’s military aggression has caused extensive destruction of Ukraine's agricultural landscapes, necessitating the urgent development of financially sustainable models for their restoration. This study substantiates a comprehensive approach to the recovery of de-occupied territories based on the principles of the circular economy through the implementation of the Soil-to-Energy phytoremediation model. The modelling was based on the results of a field assessment of damage to 122 ha of agricultural land in the Snihurivka Urban Territorial Community, Mykolaiv Region. The estimated total cost of physical soil restoration alone for this area may reach UAH 54.0 million. The research methodology employed undiscounted cash flow analysis to evaluate the financial feasibility of a 15-year phytoremediation crop rotation (sorghum, safflower, and sweet clover) adapted to the arid climatic conditions of the Ukrainian Steppe. The findings demonstrate that processing phytoremediation biomass into solid biofuel not only minimizes the risk of heavy metal transfer into food chains but also ensures high operational profitability. According to the calculations, the cumulative net cash flow over the fifteen-year production cycle amounts to UAH 252.2 thousand per hectare, corresponding to a total profit of UAH 30.8 million. The estimated payback period for the initial capital investment in a briquetting production line (UAH 1.5 million) is 0.8 years. The study demonstrates that stable revenue generation from bioenergy production makes it possible to fully recover the costs of physical soil restoration within 28 years under the conservative pricing scenario and within 15.2 years under the optimistic scenario. It is concluded that the proposed bioenergy-based model is capable of independently compensating for the funding gap while creating long-term economic incentives for land users to maintain continuous ecological restoration measures. The practical significance of the findings lies in their application to spatial development strategies and soil restoration programmes for de-occupied territorial communities operating under conditions of limited investment resources.
The study addresses the identification of research field lands in Ukraine’s State Land Cadastre and the preservation of information about their scientific use. Its aim is to substantiate an approach linking legal, spatial and soil data with the history of field experiments. The materials include legislation, scientific publications and descriptions of European long-term experiment databases. Legal and comparative analysis, classification and modelling of relationships between objects were used. Institutional affiliation and a designated-use code alone cannot identify the boundaries of each research field. A cadastral parcel, a research field boundary and an individual experiment are therefore distinguished. The historical role of form No. 6-zem and the legal conditions for protecting these lands are clarified. Five groups of land users, a minimum record structure and a model linking the cadastre to an institutional research register are proposed. The record combines parcel and experiment identifiers, boundaries, legal grounds, soil properties, sources and update dates. Record completeness and area discrepancies are proposed as quality indicators. Automated change detection should trigger verification; legally significant updates require supporting documents. The economic rationale is to reduce repeated information searches and the risk of losing accumulated research results. The approach can support inventories, soil protection planning and land-use decisions. The findings are methodological and require validation using institutional data. The proposed framework provides a basis for that validation and for maintaining consistent information about field experiments over time. Versioned records preserve changes in boundaries, experimental protocols and the assignment of institutional responsibility.
The study outlines the content of eco-economic mechanisms for ensuring the balanced development of rural areas and systematizes them according to economic and environmental components, taking into account the relevant organizational and legal frameworks. It identifies key social, environmental, economic, and institutionalmanagerial challenges regarding land use — exacerbated by the full-scale war — and substantiates priority areas for improving state regulation in this sector. A comprehensive set of measures is proposed to enhance the efficiency and environmental balance of land use in rural areas, including anti-erosion land protection, optimization of cultivation intensity, improvement of crop rotation structures, implementation of adaptive farming systems, increased transparency in land relations, and the strengthening of the institutional capacity of territorial communities. Priority directions are identified for the environmentally oriented development of rural areas that are spatially and functionally linked to nature conservation areas; these include expanding economic opportunities for communities and developing green tourism, improving environmental management and conservation infrastructure, and fostering social development and partnership-based cooperation. The study demonstrates the value of adopting European practices for managing nature conservation areas, which are based on integrating conservation goals with the socio-economic interests of territorial communities. Significant public support for nature conservation initiatives in Ukraine has been identified, alongside a lack of public awareness and practical involvement in the processes of establishing and developing protected areas. The study substantiates the need to enhance public environmental awareness, develop mechanisms for civic engagement, and foster economic interest among local communities in preserving and expanding the nature reserve fund. It is demonstrated that a comprehensive combination of sustainable land use, the development of protected areas, and the adoption of European practices creates the prerequisites for enhancing environmental resilience, economic viability, and the balanced development of rural areas in Ukraine.
The article summarizes and systematizes Canada’s experience in classifying land according to its suitability for agricultural use — the unified Canada Land Inventory (CLI) system, which is based on determining the limiting factors of land use and the degree of their manifestation (seven suitability classes and thirteen subclasses of limitations). The history of the formation of the Canadian system from the provincial variants of the 1930s–1940s to the nationwide unified classification of the 1960s and its modern digital transformation within the framework of open geospatial data of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is highlighted. Alternative provincial scoring systems for land assessment are considered (J. Mitchell’s system and the Quebec eight-factor system). A comparative analysis of the Canadian and Ukrainian scientific and methodological approaches to assessing land suitability was carried out, which demonstrated the fundamental difference in the initial methodological paradigms: limiting (Canadian) and compliance with the agrobiological requirements of crops (Ukrainian). Special attention is paid to new challenges in the classification of agricultural land in Ukraine, caused by the full-scale armed aggression of the Russian Federation — physical, chemical, biological and social degradation of soils as a result of hostilities, which requires supplementing the current methodology for classifying lands with criteria for the degree of military contamination and soil cover disturbance. The directions for adapting individual elements of the Canadian experience (limiting approach, remote sensing, open geospatial data) to the conditions of post-war restoration of land resources in Ukraine are substantiated. The practical significance of the study lies in substantiating specific methodological guidelines for improving the current land classification system of Ukraine, which is of particular importance in the context of large-scale restoration of agricultural production in de-occupied and war-affected territories.
