Resource information
The protection of agricultural land is an important issue because the area of food production per capita will be decreasing by several estimations in the next decades. The planning measures to ensure the preservation of valuable arable land are among the objectives of county plans in Estonia. However, there is no clear methodology for determination of valuable agricultural land as of now. The aim of the study was to develop methodology in order to determine valuable agricultural lands in the frame of preparation of countywide spatial plans in Estonia. The paper presents a description of that methodology and the possibilities to implement it in the course of preparation of county plans. The idea of the methodology is to calculate the complex value index for plots of agricultural land. The complex value index characterises the plots of agricultural land from the agriculture production perspective, and the fiscal value of land is not considered thereof. The soil fertility, spatial properties, and other features of plots have been considered for calculation of the complex value index for Jogeva County in Estonia. All tasks were made in an ArcGIS environment and different digital maps were used as data sources. The calculated indexes made the plots comparable from the agriculture production perspective and conditions for simulation of the different situations of valuable land areas were created. The simulation of different situations of valuable arable land indicated that the proposed methodology gave planners flexible tools for determination of valuable agricultural land.
