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The application of ecosystem services (ES) theories in land consolidation is a confusing issue that has long plagued scholars and government officials. As the upgraded version of traditional land consolidation, comprehensive land consolidation (CLC) emphasizes ecological benefits, but it does not achieve the expected effect during the pilot phase. This study first proposed a theoretical analysis framework based on ES knowledge to answer the three key questions of why, where, and how to implement CLC better. Taking mountainous counties as the study area, we found that ES trade-offs/synergies, bundles, and drivers were significantly affected by scale effects. ES knowledge can play a crucial role in designing multi-scale CLC strategies regarding the objective, zoning, intensity, and mode. Specifically, mitigating the significant trade-offs between recreational opportunities, food production, and other ES is the top priority of CLC. Land consolidation zoning based on the ES bundles analysis is more rational and can provide the scientific premise for designing locally adapted CLC measures. Land consolidation can be classified into high-intensity direct intervention and low-intensity indirect intervention modes, based on the major drivers of ES. These findings help narrow the gap between ES and CLC practices.

Since the 1980s, Chinese cities have witnessed significant growth, resulting in urban sprawl all over the country. Under the strict land quota system, local government has had to transform its approach of Greenfield development to land consolidation. Under the 'Increasing and Decreasing Balance' land use policy, the Shanghai government began to consolidate rural construction land in order to acquire extra quota for state land by transferring development rights from collective land to state land and by establishing a three-level land consolidation planning system. This paper firstly examines the expansion of non-agricultural land in Shanghai since 1990. It explains the policy arrangements of land consolidation from the perspective of property rights transfer between state and collective land. Taking Xinbang Township as an example, this paper examines the roles of various stakeholders in land consolidation, the municipalities, district and township governments, village collectives, local villagers and entrepreneurs, and analyses the impact land consolidation has upon them. The paper concludes with discussion and policy implications of future land consolidation.

Area identification is an important prerequisite for land consolidation and ecological restoration (LCER); the realization of an optimized land use pattern is the key link of land use optimization. This study meets the dual requirements by establishing an identification framework for potential LCER areas. The framework is applied to the Yellow River Basin with the help of the multi-objective linear programming (MOLP) model and patch-generating land use simulating (PLUS) model, which effectively connects the “ideal” land use pattern with the “practical” LCER. The main conclusions are as follows. (1) The land development probability of the basin shows a significant spatial differentiation. Precipitation significantly restricts the development of agricultural and ecological lands, and the population is the key factor affecting the construction land. (2) The construction land sprawl, cropland loss, and grassland reduction would be effectively controlled in the optimized land use pattern, with the forestland and water increasing and the unused land area decreasing. (3) The framework of “land expansion analysis-land use optimization-potential area identification” is established and used to identify LCER areas, including four conversion areas of cropland development, cropland retirement, ecological reconstruction, ecological readjustment, and four non-conversion areas of cropland improvement, ecological conservation, and reserve resource area (I,II). Conversion areas require more LCER interventions than non-conversion areas. The spread of construction land could lead to severe losses of grassland and cropland under the natural development scenario. Land use optimization effectively protects cropland and ecological land, based on which identifying LCER areas and adapting differentiated measures contribute to implementing such conservation while improving the basin’s economic and ecological benefits. The identification framework provides flexible method guidance for determining the LCER areas, and offers a reference path for realizing optimized land use structure and pattern.

After the implementation of this policy, the appearance of rural settlements has changed from \"dilapidated and disorderly\" to \"clean and tidy\" (Fig. 1). Since the application of land consolidation in 1999, it is estimated that at least 2.5 million ha of cultivated land have been saved through land consolidation, and the increased grain production is equal to the output of 2.7 million ha of cultivated land.

This scientific study focuses on the assessment of the legislation on land valuation, which takes place in the framework of selected administrative procedures in the Slovak Republic. The issue of land valuation is regulated in several pieces of legislation and, in terms of content, is their unifying feature of the valuation of land for public purposes. The reason for examining the determination of the so-called \"administrative price of land\" is the fact that, in practice, the administrative procedures analyzed are extremely time-consuming and considerably inefficient compared to other administrative practices. Another reason for analyzing the legislation on land valuation is the fact that they also have a direct impact on the speed of the related administrative procedures and on the use of land for private purposes and, therefore, on the actual exercise of the property rights to which the parties to those proceedings are legally entitled. The main objective of this study is to examine the quantity, quality, and differences of legislation allowing land valuation for land consolidation purposes and to compare it with land valuation for restitution and expropriation purposes. In the processing of the topic, we primarily used the method of critical legal analysis and suitable and available scientific methods designed for law examinations, such as description or synthesis. In the context of the examination, we also applied a comparative method to compare the development of the legal situation of the Slovak Republic with the Czech Republic. We also used scientific and doctrinal interpretations associated with the application of case law on Slovak and Czech legislation, as well as professional and scientific literature contained in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The results of the study indicate that, despite the multi-annual effectiveness of the legislation, it would be appropriate to resolve the problems encountered in the Slovak Republic by adopting a new code regulating the issue of land consolidation.

The aim of the article is to develop recommendations on defining stages of consolidation of agricultural land in Ukraine on the basis of the best international practices. The analysis, systematization and generalization of scientific works of domestic and foreign scientists made it possible to determine a possible order of land consolidation in Ukraine and provide a detailed description of each stage. As a result of the research, the following main stages of land consolidation were proposed: the initiation, inventory, planning, implementation and final one. Each of these stages is considered consistently with justification of its expediency, the list of necessary measures and land management documentation, presentation of practical examples from different countries of the world. It is determined that each stage of the land consolidation procedure should be conducted in compliance with the principle of openness, which ensures the involvement of the maximum number of landowners/land users and protection of their interests, creates a positive attitude of the society towards land consolidation. A structural and logical model of the procedure for consolidating agricultural land, which clearly reflects the stages and activities of its implementation, is drawn up. There presented recommendations on the need to introduce new land management documentation for land consolidation with a detailed description of their essence. The relevance of further studies of the procedure for the agricultural land consolidation is in bringing a flexible, simple, cost-effective and short-term approach to its implementation.

This study uses cross-sectional survey data collected countrywide by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (EICV 5) from a random sample of 14,580 households. This study significantly contributes to understanding the drivers of land consolidation in Rwanda by revealing that socioeconomic factors, institutional frameworks, and location variables critically influence household participation, which remains limited despite its agricultural reform importance, thereby informing targeted policy interventions. We used Multinomial Logistic Regression Model to evaluate household responses across all 30 districts in Rwanda. For an appropriate analysis, we exploited the odds ratio of logistic regression and marginal effects by setting the theoretical framework and mode for each variable characteristic. The study found that one out of five households is engaged in land consolidation, highlighting its limited adoption despite its significance in the country's agricultural reforms. Furthermore, socioeconomic and institutional factors and location had a significant impact on households' participation in land consolidation. Additionally, factors such as household size, livestock ownership and agricultural input use, including fertilizer, irrigation, and improved seeds showed strong positive and statistically significant effects on land consolidation participation. Accordingly, policy-makers should prioritize locations with existing irrigation infrastructure and large areas of consolidated land.

Collaborative planning is intriguing, but its practical execution in increasing community responsibility is questionable. Due to the private sector's dominance, many housing revitalisation public–private partnerships were market-driven and lacked social aims. The People Public and Private Partnership (P4) emerges as an approach to improve the role of community in public–private collaborations. We want to critically evaluate and advise on integrating the P4 concept into a community-government action plan. This topic is contextualised in Cibangkong, a Bandung slum, vertical land consolidation planning. Using the Actor-Relational Approach and semi-structured interviews, group discussions, and documentary reviews, we discussed the progress of Urban Development through Local Partnership (U-Develop), a new initiative to promote communities as the key shareholder in the rejuvenation project. This article contributes to collaborative planning theories by providing an approach to People Public and Private Partnership (P4) that promotes more significant community empowerment through formalised business sharing to ensure the balance between social and economic interests in the collaboration. The findings suggest that U-Develop's equity-sharing and community-business organisation could boost community negotiating power as well as financial and intellectual capacity. However, reconciling individual interests and developing more familiar business streams to maintain their enthusiasm were the most crucial but difficult components of the project's sustainability.

In this article we investigate the potential for and limitations of land consolidation as a tool for rural development in transitional environments, focusing on the Khorezm region in Uzbekistan, Central Asia. We frame our analysis in a broader evaluation of land consolidation as a tool for economic development based on European experiences. It is argued that both the European tradition and the Uzbek case indicate that land consolidation as an isolated measure may trigger many unfavourable side-effects, and that in a transitional environment it requires even more careful tailoring of measures and embedding in various institutional settings.

Purpose Effective farmer participation in the rural land consolidation process has become increasingly important because it improves results in rural land consolidation and land use efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to examine the mechanism of farmers’ effective participation in Chinese rural land consolidation. Design/methodology/approach The authors empirically assess farmers’ effective participation in the rural land consolidation process in ten counties of China’s Hubei province. Focusing on an effective decision-making model, the authors comprehensively evaluated farmer participation using surveys that incorporated an index system and analyzed survey results using a structural equation model to examine factors that influenced farmer’s effective participation. Findings The results of the study suggest that the correlations between farmers’ effective participation and the impacting factors the authors proposed were particularly strong. In addition, participation ability, participation opportunity and participation incentive are strongly associated with effective farmer participation. Thus, the authors highlight that incentives should be provided to encourage farmers’ effective participation in rural land consolidation. Research limitations/implications Because of the chosen approach and the set of the research object, the geographic context of the empirical survey work was limited; furthermore, the authors only studied the influencing factors at the individual level, leaving the interaction effects between governmental factors and farmer individual factors inadequately explained. Originality/value Despite those limitations, these results serve as an important reference for government agencies and stakeholder groups in rural land consolidation decision making.