Identifying Villages for Land Consolidation: A New Agricultural Wasteland Concentration Indicator

Land consolidation is a process of improving the spatial structure of rural areas, including agricultural wastelands. During work related to this geodesic operation, selected areas can be specified, and the most efficient ways of developing the analysed land can be proposed. Thanks to such rural management work, rural areas can become competitive and start deriving financial benefits from crop cultivation. At the same time, the living standard of their inhabitants is enhanced. The study covered 18 out of 44 villages situated within the administrative limits of the district of Brzozów in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of south-eastern Poland. An agricultural wasteland concentration indicator was designed for this area based on six factors (soil quality class, agricultural soil complex, slope angle, risk of erosion, water regime, and slope aspect). Each factor was calculated as the total quotient of the weighted feature in relation to the total surface area of the study site. The last stage was a detailed analysis of the area featuring the highest value of the agricultural wasteland indicator—the village of Obarzym. The indicator described in this paper, designed to measure the concentration of agricultural wastelands, can be useful in programming and documenting assumptions for land consolidation to reveal the highest concentration of wasteland. The factors included in this publication refer to soil conditions, terrain relief, and the water regime. Their respective characteristics were designed via multiple calculations using geoprocessing algorithms in GIS software. Various geospatial data provided by district, regional, and national public institutions were used for the calculations. An advantage of the solution is that it can be used in various regions, irrespective of the location of the object to be consolidated.