Preliminary Analysis of Criteria for Land Consolidation in Protected Areas

Abstract

Land Consolidation is the agrarian and technical operation that aims to group and collect the segmented and fragmented holdings into one or more rounded holdings to achieve a more rational agricultural production. Modern approaches to land consolidation moved its primary purpose from the agricultural sector into the environmental and recreational sectors, with the aim of creating multi-purpose land consolidation. This type of Land Consolidation includes the re-allocation of parcels together with a broad range of other measures that contribute to rural development. To assess different future scenarios considering all the identified problems, a comprehensive spatial database is needed. The paper proposes an approach to achieve sustainable rural development using the case study of UNESCO’s World Heritage Site Stari Grad Plain in Croatia. Land use classification using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) calculated from fixed-wing UAV multispectral images was used as an example of quantitative indicator. These indicators can be used in the process of land valuation as an important part of land consolidation procedure, increasing information-based decision making in rural development programme.