Designation and protection of especially valuable land

In recent years, there has been a more careful attitude to valuable agricultural land and, primarily, to sustainable use of especially valuable, most productive land. This land should be designated, delimited, sustainably and carefully managed, to ensure the production of organic agricultural food and raw materials, protected and preserved for the present and future generations. The paper analyzes past experiences in defining especially valuable land for further sustainable use and protection against land retirement. The authors clarify the concept of such land, which consists in its productivity and suitability for agricultural use. The paper proposes a criterion for classifying land as especially valuable as a land-use-capability class determined when classifying lands according to the methods approved. The special software developed by the authors and approved by the state registration authority provides automated processing of significant volumes of soil, agro-climatic and economic information. The land classification scales developed for the constituent entities of the Russian Federation provide a toolkit for determining land classes by soil varieties, with their value to be subsequently defined. Soil plans are designed to delimit land classes that include the corresponding soil varieties. Keeping account of the current negative properties of land makes it possible to differentiate soils more objectively: soil varieties with negative properties are not included in the array of especially valuable lands. The paper deals with approaches for designating especially valuable lands and presents data gathered by the authors on their areas in federal districts of the European part of the RF. It is proposed to include the information on the boundaries of especially valuable lands in the Unified State Land Register which would be the opportunity to endorse their special legal status. The results can be used by the constituent entities of the Russian Federation to support activities towards designation and protection of especially valuable land. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.