Abstract
Land consolidation and land compensation require the evaluation of the productivity of the exchanged or recompensed areas. A serious deficiency in land consolidation regulations set by the Agricultural Land Ownership and Use Act, 1991 is the 10% restriction on the difference in the exchanged areas before and after land consolidation. The simultaneous action of the current methodology for equating lands by their quality, together with the legal restrictions of this Act, limits the implementation of land consolidation to only highly productive lands of the 1st to the 3rd land category. The objective of this paper is to suggest a method for extending the implementation of land consolidation to larger areas and to recommend a fairer calculation method in equating lands by their quality. Two approaches to landed property exchange are united. One of them is based on the mean estimates of land productivity per land category (MLPE) (considering the Bulgarian Land Categorization System), the other one – on the detailed land productivity estimates of each landed property (DLPE). The adapted FAO Land Suitability Classification is suggested to identify areas suitable for land consolidation. Regression analysis and expert assessment were used. The data required for GIS processing are specified and systemized. A proposal for the improvement of the legal framework is given.
Highlights
Land consolidation in Bulgaria ceased in the middle of the last century with the establishment of the state‐planned economy
One of them is based on the mean estimates of land productivity per land category (MLPE), the other one – on the detailed land productivity estimates of each landed prop‐ erty (DLPE)
The 10% limit imposed by Art 88, paragraph 1 of [3] permits only two types of exchange: 1) an exchange of areas only by adjacent categories; 2) an exchange of small areas of non‐adjacent categories and a big area of the same category so that the average result would be within the statutory limit
Summary
Land consolidation in Bulgaria ceased in the middle of the last century with the establishment of the state‐planned economy. The sole Cadaster and Land Consoli‐ dation Act in Bulgarian history was promulgated in 1941 In this Act, the main stage of the land consolidation process was regulated as “Estimation of agricultural land suitability and land valuation” (Art 42 of [1]). 5) The new owners of former state and municipal land are not allowed to dis‐ pose of that land acquired in this procedure for 10 years, including changing its main purpose of use (Art 36, paragraph 6 of [3]). This can be considered a preventive measure against further fragmentation
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