Land consolidation suitability ranking of cadastral municipalities: Information-based decision-making using multi-criteria analyses of official registers' data

Abstract

Fragmented agricultural land raises the costs of agricultural production. The land fragmentation manifests as a large number of relatively small and spatially divided land parcels of each owner. Additionally, the parcels are often very irregular in shape, which hinders an effective application of modern agricultural machinery. A land consolidation procedure, i.e., regrouping and merging partitioned agricultural land into larger andmore regular parcels, and simultaneously arranging road and canal networks, enables a significant improvement in the conditions of agricultural production. The basis for conducting land consolidation is the legal framework. Multi-annual and annual plans are to specify priority areas for conducting consolidation. These plans should take into consideration the costs and benefits of land consolidation. To ascertain this, it is necessary to determine areas suitable for consolidation and express their qualitative features in a quantitative manner. The aim of this paper is to explore possibilities of using the official registers' data to broad selection of land consolidation priority areas. To rank the chosen spatial units, various indicators have been selected and calculated at the state level. Multi-criteria analyses are commonly used as a tool for selection of the optimal solution scenario, using possibly conflicting indicators andmeasures. The paper used three differentmulti-criteriamethods to determine Cadastral municipalities rankings. These rankings could be used by national agricultural or other spatial planning agencies to increase transparency and effectiveness through information-based decision making.