Approaches towards Land Valuation and Land Pricing under the Influence of Geo-Climate Change

The Czech Republic is more or less unique in its dual system (official and market price) of agricultural land prices. In the case of the market price, there are several studies and approaches that assess the impact of individual variables on the market price of land. If we focus on the official price of land, its value in the Czech Republic is influenced by the evaluated soil ecological unit (ESEU) price. The ESEU price expresses the production potential of the land on the basis of soil quality indicators, which include the climatic region, the main soil unit, slope and exposure and, last but not least, the depth of the soil profile and skeletonisation. Climate change also means that the current values of the definition (e.g., for a climatic region, this refers to the average temperature or average precipitation) do not correspond to reality. No studies have looked in detail at the impact of soil quality indicators or climate change on the price of ESEUs. New and more accurate measurements of soil characteristics are increasing the number of ESEU codes, and prices have not yet been set for some codes. For this reason, we proposed the use of a hedonic method to determine shadow prices, which reflect the intensity and direction of the effect of each input variable on the price of an ESEU. A heteroscedastic corrected linear regression model was used to determine the coefficients, which presents in detail the effect of all included parameters on the final price of an ESEU in the results section. From the results, it was obvious that the shadow price coefficients themselves corresponded to basic generally accepted assumptions regarding the direction of effect. In the conditions of the Czech Republic, a significant influence on the price of an ESEU was mainly the slope with exposure and the depth of the soil profile with skeletonisation. These factors affected the productive capacity of the soil, which, in turn, translated into lower profitability of agricultural entities. The high explanatory ability of the hedonic model, with a high parametric significance for most of the used variables, was an important factor determining the robustness of the model as a repricing tool. The model set according to the prices of the applicable price decree can be used to set the prices of new or not-yet-valued ESEU codes under the conditions in the Czech Republic, or shadow prices can be used during climatic changes in the event of the transfer of the given soil unit to another climate region according to the general specification. It is therefore an important tool for the needs of the public administration.

The Matuyama—Brunhes boundary in the loess-palaeosol sequence of Dolynske, southern Ukraine

We present the results of a palaeomagnetic study of the Early—Middle Pleistocene deposits exposed on the left bank of the River Danube at Dolynske, southern Ukraine. A thick succession of water-lain facies is succeeded by stratigraphically complete loess-palaeosol sequence; these constitute a unique palaeoclimate archive in the southern margin of the East European loess province. The Matuyama—Brunhes boundary (MBB) has been detected at the bottom of the Lower Shyrokyne (S7S3) subunit and not in the Martonosha (S6) unit as previously thought. New data align with previous results from the Roksolany and Vyazivok sections, where the MBB was determined at the same stratigraphical level in the S7S3 soil. In contrast to terrestrial Pleistocene records in China and сentral Europe, where the MBB was regularly determined in a loess layer (representing a cold period), the MBB in the Ukrainian subaerial succession is located in the soil unit (representing a warm period). Furthermore, eight, and not seven, glacial-interglacial cycles are recorded in the Brunhes chron. This may indicate the stratigraphic completeness of the loess-soil succession of Ukraine, which can be compared with the reference global marine and terrestrial palaeoclimatic archives. Further palaeomagnetic studies of loess-palaeosol sequences of other regions of Ukraine will allow revision and correlation of still inconsistent stratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic schemes of the Pleistocene deposits.

Prostorna analiza tala i utjecaj na produktivnost u gospodarskoj jedinici Mužljanski rit

The paper presents analysis of soil spatial distribution and productivity of Populus x euramericana I-214 forest cultures in forest management unit (hereinafter: FMU) Muzljanski rit. Soil cover in the FMU is heterogeneous in relation to position and altitude in floodplain. Analysis were conducted on eugley and humogley soil types. Eugley, soil type, was delineated according to physiologically active soil depth as α, β or β/γ gley soils and humogley was delineated as one soil unit. Cultures of the poplar clones Populus x euramericana I-214 are found on at least two but usually more different site types within the same forest management section (18.43 %). Single forest management section is a by definition a single forest spatial unit having similar ecologic factors. Aim of our research was to enable consistent forest section delineation, based on the interaction of soil productivity properties and distribution as well as Populus x euramericana I-214 productivity dataset. Based on our anaysis (spatial analysis of raster layers of soil systematic unit distribution-soil subunit, digital elevation model and productivity according to inner delineation of FMU Muzljanski rit), the resuts show eugley share in lower systematic soil unit. The results show contribution of lower systematic units of eugley in forest managemet section/culture. We found a raising trend of α and β-gley, as well as humogley. On one side the higher contribution of this sistematic units indicates reduction in the forest culture yield. On the other side higher contribution of β/γ gley indicates an increase of culture yeald. The Populus x euramericana I-214 cultures are spatialy concentrated, extending over soil units with different characteristics, pointing in alternative economicaly justified section delineation, based on the soil types.

Significance of the Ukrainian loess-palaeosol sequences for Pleistocene climate reconstructions: rock magnetic, palaeosol and pollen proxies

Variations of rock magnetic parameters in loess-palaeosol sequences, related to climatic and environmental conditions during their formation, are a powerful tool for palaeoclimate reconstruction. Combined enviromagnetic study of loess deposits in Ukraine and its assessment for the palaeoreconstruction purposes are carried out in the framework of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine project 2020.02/0406 ‘Magnetic proxies of palaeoclimatic changes in the loess-palaeosol sequences of Ukraine’. Environmental/climatic reconstructions of the past are fulfilled using a significant number of palaeoindicators: morphology and lithological properties of palaeosols and loesses, their pollen assemblages and a wide range of magnetic characteristics. In this paper, we present a multi-proxy approach to palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, and introduce preliminary results obtained from magnetic susceptibility of loess-palaeosol sequences in the northern (at Vyazivok), central (Stari Kaydaky) and southern (Roksolany) parts of the Ukrainian loess belt. The amplitudes of palaeoclimate change established using magnetic proxies are well correlated with the lithological, palaeopedological and palynological patterns of the sites, and with the global oxygen-isotope scale (MIS). Ongoing studies of the Stari Kaydaky section confirm the correlation of the Upper Zavadivka (S3) soil unit and Lower Zavadivka (S4) soil unit with MIS 9 and MIS 11, respectively (this was proved earlier at the Vyazivok and Roksolany sites). The underlying Lubny (S5) pedocomplex likely corresponds to MIS 13, and the Martonosha (S6) pedocomplex to MIS 15. Palaeomagnetic investigations at Stari Kaydaky have not so far reached the Lower Shyrokyne unit, in which the Matuyama—Brunhes boundary has been detected at Roksolany and Vyazivok. The Upper Shyrokyne (S7S1) palaeosol unit has normal polarity and is preliminarily correlated with MIS 17.

GEOSPATIAL TECHNOLOGY BASED SOIL LOSS ESTIMATION FOR SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT OF BUTWAL SUBMETROPOLITAN CITY, NEPAL

Geo-spatial technology was attempted to estimate the potential and actual soil loss and its correlative interpretation with physiographic soil units and land use and cover types in Butwal sub-metropolitan city, Central Region of Nepal. Among several empirical and physically based soil erosion models, widely used RKLS and RKLSCP, Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) were employed to estimate the potential and actual soil loss in the present investigation, respectively. Five years of rainfall, topographic contour-spot height and soil map were basically used as source of information for in-depth investigation. Butwal sub-metropolitan located at foothill of Chure/Siwalik range was found highly sensitive or prone to soil erosion. A total of 32.68 and 1.83 million tons soil was potentially and actually estimated annually being lost from the city. Erosion rates were found highly correlated with the slope of physiographic soil unit. 60.93% of the total potential soil loss was mainly contributed only by physiographic-soil unit 12 with the spatial extent of 34.10% of the city area. This unit was characterized by steeply to very steeply sloping mountainous terrain having dominant slope greater than 30° and loamy skeletal as dominant soil texture. Significant difference was found in the estimation of RKLS and RKLSCP indicating the substantial reduction contribution of soil loss by land use/cover types predominated by forest. after agriculture. Thus physiographic-soil unit 12 having soil loss highest must be given higher priorities for soil conservation and optimum urban land use planning required for sustainable urban development. Lower percentage of actual soil to the potential loss indicated the fact of contribution of cover management and erosional control practice factor in reducing soil erosion in existing situation.