The most important area of the common agricultural policy of the European Union (EU) is the sustainable development of rural territories. This issue is the priority for EU countries due to a number of factors (migration of rural population, low incomes in rural areas, deterioration of quality of soils and waters, loss of biodiversity, etc.) that negatively affect the development of rural areas. The experience of the EU in implementing the policy supporting rural development was analyzed, as well as change of goals and priorities of this policy within different programme periods.

This paper focuses on the application of the concept of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in Tanzania. It asks: how did IWRM affect the rural and fast-growing majority of smallholder farmers' access to water which contributes directly to poverty alleviation and employment creation in a country where poverty and joblessness are high?

The research studies the issue of ecological stability of rural territories that is the most important component of the national environmental policy of Ukraine. A special attention is paid to degradation of arable lands as the main ecological problem of land management. On the example of Lviv region, the authors calculated the index of ecological nonconformity of current use of arable lands, proving a considerable excess of permissible ploughing of lands in the region.

Rural households are displaced from their lands without any plan in place to resettle or compensate them, for a promise of improvement in their living standards. This has not only resulted in a decline in the living standard of the rural populace, in terms of loss of land and livelihoods, the poor are also further marginalized and impoverished. This study examines the welfare implication of domestic land grabs among rural households in Delta State, Nigeria, employing primary data obtained from one hundred and seventy-three representative farming households.

Africa is basically an agrarian state, with over 65 percent of its populace engaged in one form of farming or animal husbandry. Predominately, Africa’s agriculture is human-labour dependent, with near absence of mechanization in most production practices as well as being rural based. In most rural areas cropping is basically achieved through the use of simple tools such as hoes and cutlasses. Rural set-ups in most African states often lack basic amenities for comfortable life, with resultant effect on human migration from rural areas to urban centers.

Bangladesh is located on a huge delta, an area of high population density. The study investigates the situation of commonly used resources in rural Bangladesh, with case studies in two villages in different hydrological situations. In rural Bangladesh, most land is owned privately or by the government, and the common properties are very few. Instead, swamps were open to local communities and anyone has access to it.

Recent studies have focused on the 'silent' agricultural revolution that occurred in rural West German society during the postwar period. The purpose of this paper is to provide a new framework by reviewing these recent studies in three research fields: (1) German rural social history, (2) the history of German agricultural policy, and (3) the ecological aspects of the land consolidation program ('Flurbereinigung').

Business activities conducted in rural areas are associated with crop cultivation, animal rearing and agricultural produce processing. The countryside residents, after hard work, should be offered a chance of having pleasant leisure time activities. In general, the ambient conditions in rural areas provide many opportunities, but the surroundings should be adapted as to allow the pursuit of various forms of recreation.

Determining areas affected by forest succession is one of the main tasks aimed at shaping rural areas. Effective determination of the parameters of the dynamics of forest succession in areas used for agriculture is the basis for understanding the phenomenon of land cultivation abandonment. Understanding it allows to implement a proper policy limiting the negative effects of giving up agricultural production. There are many methods to determine forested areas. The most popular group of the methods includes those that rely on the use of LiDAR data.

This was a presentation at a Workshop on Development of an Interim Framework for the National Land Use Classification Standard, Methodology and Symbology for South Africa.  It shows why land use and land cover are not the same, why land use often cannot be determined from imagery alone, and why land use, zoning and planning are not the same.

This report, a summary of the substantial challenges that continue to plague South Africa’s efforts to reform land administration system, proposes that key decision-makers and informers involved in communal land administration undergo a mindshift in thinking. This shift should be from focusing exclusively on transferring communal land to traditional leaders, Common Property Institutions and private individuals, to recognising and accommodating existing forms of social tenure.