Documentation of land use planning

Land use planning is carried out according to decisions of government bodies, local self-management; administrative areas and cities; under the petition of the interested proprietors and land users as well as citizens and legal persons applying for reception of a land site. The use of lands strictly to their assignment, the organization of territory of landed properties and land uses, measures for maintenance of steady landscapes and protection of lands are obligatory for all proprietors and land users as well as for bodies of government. Land use planning is carried out and financed with participation of the parties concerned or their authorized representatives. In land use planning may participate: - citizens, enterprises, establishments, organizations, other legal persons being customers of land use planning documentation; - developers of land use planning documentation; - proprietors and users of land in which territory land use planning is carried out; - government bodies, appropriate committees of the Russian Federation and the institutions of local government participating in land use planning activity according to the competence; - proprietors and land users whose land sites adjoin to arranged territory or are inside it; - citizens, public and other persons not owning the sites, whose interests are touched by land use planning actions. The customers of land use planning work may be the government bodies, institutions of local government, citizens, state and public enterprises, organizations, establishments and other legal persons. According to the Russian Federation legislation the state guarantees to all participants of land use planning activity irrespective of ownership forms on land and citizenship maintenance of equal rights and interests protected by the law, and the right of the appeal in juridical order of any illegal actions.

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Land suitability mapping

Land suitability mapping is a method to identify the most suitable land units for a range of land use systems. A step-wise procedure is used to survey existing resources, identify constraints and opportunities for change. The first step normally includes land cover mapping. Land cover mapping produces maps of vegetation patterns, soil and land use types. The mapping scale corresponds to the level of de-tails from the use of aerial photographs and satellite images. Normally there is no distinction made between natural and human induces land 32 cover. Land cover mapping is usually performed in the early stages of land use planning, where baseline information about natural resources and constraints are collected. Map units refer to very broad categories of land cover, such as "coniferous forest" or "urban areas". Land capability classification identifies those areas with the highest potential for a large number of land uses on the basis of their production potential. The method is similar to land suitability mapping but operates at a more general level. Land suitability mapping is a kind of detailed land assessment, i.e. the fitness of land use for a specific use, e.g. "partly suitable farming with wheat as the best yielding crop". Normally a soil map serves as a base map to indicate homogenous land areas with similar properties (soil type, climate, vegetation). The units identified are called land units. It is an area of land which possesses specific land characteristics and land qualities and which can be mapped. The starting point for suitability mapping is a mapping of the most relevant factors for a given land use. These factors also called land attributes, are divided into 1) land qualities and 2) land characteristics. The following "rules of thumb" can be used to identify the land qualities which should be part of a land suitability mapping: - the land quality must have a substantial effect on performance or on cost of production; - critical values of the land quality must occur in the planning area; - it is realistic to measure or estimate the value of the land quality. Furthermore, one should beware of variations in values of a given land quality during a cropping season and the impact variations have on crop yields. Care should be taken to select values from measurements representing critical moments in crop growth.