Resource information
The spatial structure of rural areas in eastern Poland is characterized by large fragmentation of privately owned farmland, as well as the scattering of parcels across villages and beyond their boundaries. An important defect is also the unfavourable shape of land parcels, which hampers and sometimes even makes impossible rational management of land in a given area. Shape analysis has been the focus of numerous publications in fields such as geography and ecology, and, more recently, also geodesy. Previous studies show that both the shape and the size of parcels can be improved by consolidation of land. This process allows the creation of new plots with regular shapes, which translates into increased profits and improved living conditions of the farmers. From this angle, it seems necessary to conduct detailed studies of the unfavourable geometry of parcels, because the economic output of a farm is significantly influenced by the width, length, and elongation of the parcels, as well as their shape. These parameters affect both the efficiency of field work and the harvest. The research area encompassed 17 villages of the Księżpol commune, located in the Biłgoraj District in the Lubelskie Voivodship, occupying a total area of 1125.82 ha and divided into 17513 registered plots. The types of villages identified in the study differ in terms of their parcel geometry index, which may be used as one of the criteria for determining the order, in which villages should be subjected to land consolidation and exchange.
