In the COST E21-Action "Contribution of Forests and Forestry to Mitigate Greenhouse Effects", emphasis is put on the quantification of carbon storage in the forest ecosystems and on the understanding of linkages between human activities and climate change, particularly the role of forests and forestry.

Forests and forestry play important roles in Austria with its close to 50/ forest cover. This paper provides details about the Austrian forest carbon inventory, discusses briefly the sources and sinks accounted under the land use, land use change and forestry articles of the Kyoto Protocol, and presents an integrated carbon model (Austrian C-Balance Model) that was developed to include not only the forest sector, but other sectors that are greenhouse-gas relevant.

The Danish national reports on land-use change and forestry has so far only considered C sequestration in existing forests and in afforestation areas on former arable land. The standing stock of wood in existing forests was 55.2 millions cubic m in 1990, and the annual net increment for 1990-1999 (wood increment minus harvested wood) was around 600,000 cubic m equivalent to 916 Gg CO2 per year. It is the strategy of the Danish Government to double the forested area over the next 80-100 years by encouraging afforestation of arable land.

Lands of industrial regions are often subjected to long-term contamination with heavy metals such as cadmium, zinc, lead, copper etc. Heavy metals circulate mostly due to water flows, and in the areas with humid (micro) climate, the heavy metal pollution propagates from sources with increased intensity because of acidic environment and soil water logging. We established that natural or artificial drainage effectively increases the washout of heavy metal pollutants due to subsurface and groundwater flows.

The analysis results of common terms in land management and their interpretations in normative-legal acts of Ukraine are presented. It have been established collisions and significant differences in the wording of even such common terms as a land parcel, a boundary of land parcel, a size of land parcel, etc. The purpose of the study is to identify collisions and contradictions of some key terms used in land surveying and geodetic works, as well as development of concrete proposals for improving and perfection the relevant terms.

One of the tools for management of balanced development of rural areas is spatial planning – a kind of activity regarding to organization of use and protection of land at the national, regional and local level. The issues of conservation and restoration of natural resources in rural areas are extremely relevant for Ukraine. Main environmental problems in rural areas are: degradation of agricultural land, loss of biodiversity and pollution of land, overground and underground water. In recent years a new environmental problem has emerged − desertification.

For the last 15 years, the agglomeration of Riga has expanded and one of the most important problems that Riga faces is movement of middle-class people to surrounding municipalities. This tendency is mostly referable to the processes in the USA during the second half of the 20th century. This research has first identified the history and causes of urban sprawl since the earliest times and has compared it with the situation in Riga Region.

Ireland has a rapidly expanding forest estate which covers some 9/ of the land area. It is government policy to increase this to 17/ by the year 2030. Preliminary studies suggest that forestry activities have the potential to contribute significantly to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. Although some studies have been carried out the determination of the carbon stores and sinks in Irish forests will require a considerable research effort in the future.

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.

One of the primary measures of the land reform is to create the national land registry and related land information database, which can be formed only through a complete inventory of land. This article analyses land inventory data in the current stage of land cadastre functioning and development of land relations, as well as discusses justification of organizational and legislative preconditions for land inventory in Ukraine.

Starting from the year 2010, each year one European city is selected as the European Green Capital of the year. The award is granted to a city that has a consistent record of achieving high environmental standards, and is committed to ongoing and ambitious goals for further environmental improvement and sustainable development, as well as can act as a role model to inspire other cities and promote best practices to other European cities.

The global economic growth results in the increase of intensity of land use, which is one of the main natural resources. The degradation processes of land and soil occur as a result of economic activities and natural conditions creating degraded territories. Restoration of degraded territories and degradation risk prevention is an important task of each local government for sustainable development of a territory. It is determined by international and national legislation.