Land is essential to livelihoods, so it is hard to overstate its strategic significance for well-being and prosperity. It has been detected that farm size greatly influences agricultural sustainability from the viewpoints of the economy, environment, and society. Land concentration is negatively affecting the development of rural communities.

Afforestation of former agricultural lands is a common practice in several countries. This is beneficial for avoiding diseases carry-over from previous forest generations and to expand forest areas. However, several biotic and abiotic risks have been reported in such stands, including a higher risk of Heterobasidion root rot after thinning.

Estonian and Latvian rural inhabitants enjoy many factors enhancing the quality of life, such as the peace and quiet of the countryside, fresh food and rural activities. However, these benefits are insufficient to overcome poor employment prospects in rural areas. Place-shaping practices have transformative powers that are instrumental in achieving sustainable change in communities.

This paper uses the tripartite place attachment framework to examine six rural parishes across Estonia and Latvia. Existing analyses/frameworks on participatory processes often neglect the complexity of relationships that rural residents have to their local environments.

The issue of brownfields and their analysis in Slovakia have not been given such emphasis over the last decade as in the neighbouring EU countries, such as in Austria or in the Czech Republic. The situation is completely different in Bratislava and also in the rest of Slovakia and the development of this type of area is almost unrealized.

This article reviews the initiatives for setting up rational use and protection of agricultural lands in order to ensure accelerated growth of the agricultural sector of the Russian Federation, enhancing its sustainability, efficiency, competitiveness, and environmental safety.

Taking into account the development of the market for energy crops and biofuels, the work substantiates the need to develop comprehensive public policy measures that will take into account the various functions of land resources (economic, environmental and social), as well as their role in the formation of energy resources in rural areas.

The average land productivity score is about 41.8 in the Republic of Lithuania. However, in separate regions it ranges from 30.5 to 55.1. The research object is agricultural utilities in rural municipalities of the Republic of Lithuania.

Land is one of the most important natural resources; its use is determined by several factors, especially resources and infrastructure. Without proper land management and maintenance as well as after abandoning the land favourable conditions arise for land degradation. Land degradation processes are also found in road infrastructure, which are promoted by various risk factors.

Land consolidation and land exchange are two important measures that can be used to improve the spatial structure of farm holdings. Unfortunately, land cannot be consolidated and exchanged in all villages of a given area simultaneously, due to economic, technical, and social considerations.