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Abstract The purpose of this research was to investigate a landowner’s status as a lessor in land consolidation on agricultural areas in Europe. The research was based on surveys designed for land consolidation experts from Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Latvia, Estonia and statistical data of the areas. The lease of agricultural land is common in Europe. However, there are differences related to how common the lease is and what the rental value of land is. The variation is based on factors such as differences in the markets, historical development of the agricultural lands and current legislation. The lessors have rights as landowners in land consolidation, but in case the land is used by third parties, lessor’s status is more limited compared to other landowners’. Similarly the costs of land consolidation typically are paid by landowners, not by users. The lessors are commonly indifferent and suspicious about the land consolidation. They are occasionally suspicious, especially before or at the beginning of the process, but later on they seem to be less suspicious. The lessors’ experience of land consolidation is based commonly on a fear of additional costs for their investment.

Abstract Extreme climate events are increasingly recognized as a threat to human health, agriculture, forestry and other sectors. To assess the occurrence and impacts of extreme climate events, we have investigated the changes of indexes characterizing positive and negative temperature extremes and extreme precipitation as well as the spatial heterogeneity of extreme climate events in Latvia. Trend analysis of long-term changes in the frequency of extreme climate events demonstrated a significant increase in the number of days with extremely high air temperatures and extreme precipitation, and a decrease in the number extremely cold days.

Abstract Geometrical accuracy of remote sensing data often is ensured by geometrical transforms based on Ground Control Points (GCPs). Manual selection of GCP is a time-consuming process, which requires some sort of automation. Therefore, the aim of this study is to present and evaluate methodology for easier, semi-automatic selection of ground control points for urban areas. Custom line scanning algorithm was implemented and applied to data in order to extract potential GCPs for an image analyst. The proposed method was tested for classical orthorectification and special object polygon transform. Results are convincing and show that in the test case semi-automatic methodology is able to correct locations of 70 % (thermal data) – 80 % (orthophoto images) of buildings. Geometrical transform for subimages of approximately 3 hectares with approximately 12 automatically found GCPs resulted in RSME approximately 1 meter with standard deviation of 1.2 meters.

Time series of earth observation based estimates of vegetation inform about variations in vegetation at the scale of Latvia. A vegetation index is an indicator that describes the amount of chlorophyll (the green mass) and shows the relative density and health of vegetation. NDVI index is an important variable for vegetation forecasting and management of various problems, such as climate change monitoring, energy usage monitoring, managing the consumption of natural resources, agricultural productivity monitoring, drought monitoring and forest fire detection. In this paper, we make a one-step-ahead prediction of 7-daily time series of NDVI index using Markov chains. The choice of a Markov chain is due to the fact that a Markov chain is a sequence of random variables where each variable is located in some state. And a Markov chain contains probabilities of moving from one state to other.

Abstract This paper focuses on the quantitative examination of the wage share in the countries of the EU from 2008 to 2012, applying a division of national economy by three main sectors. The aim of the paper is to investigate the effect of employment structure and its changes, and the changes of the wage share inside the sectors on the aggregate wage share and its alterations during a short-term period. The conducted research showed that the levels of the weighted wage share, corresponding to the employment structure, were: the lowest – in agriculture, the highest – in the service sector. Furthermore, the shift of the aggregate wage share was mostly affected by the decline in the primary and secondary sectors, which was generally based on the decrease of employed people. The results also displayed that in several countries the wage shares declined because of the reduction of the wages and salaries rather than value-added.

Simulation of Pessimism Influence on Choice of Farming Strategy under Uncertainty Weather-related risks can substantially affect the crop volume depending on time and intensity of agricultural operations performed by the farmer. However, decisions under uncertainty are in some way also liable to another risk - that of excessively optimistic or pessimistic estimation of the decision maker. The paper presents results of optimistic and pessimistic farmer's agricultural operations efficiency based on the analysis of the developed discrete-event stochastic simulation model. The aim of the model is to obtain quantitative estimation of optimistic and pessimistic farmer's choice of agricultural operation strategy efficiency under fluctuation of weather conditions.

AbstractRural territories face significant challenges in a globalised world as the number of jobs in traditional rural sectors are decreasing. At the same time, information and communication technologies as well as the changes in professional duties allow the rural community to participate in the knowledge economy distantly. In order to evaluate the potential of telework 1335 inhabitants (0.07% of the population) were surveyed in Latvia. A detailed analysis was conducted in two rural municipalities (Balvi and Limbazi) that face different socio-economic challenges. The results of the survey show a high demand for telework in Latvia rather insensitive to the gender, age and the place of residence of the respondents. People in less populated areas are also interested in socialising and professional networking activities in smart work centres - special premises for teleworking.

This research is a part of the Project of the European Regional Development Fund and the Riga Technical University entitled “Creating of hydrogeological model of Latvia to be used for management of groundwater resources and for evaluation of their recovery measures”. The regional hydrogeological model (HM) for Latvia will be created. Important task is data preparation for the hydrographical network (HN) that will be incorporated into the ground surface relief. The relief will be used as the boundary condition in HM. In this article, problems and their solutions are described for getting and exporting ESRI shapefile data into the GDI BLN format. The ESRI shapefile is a format, which stores geometries and attributes in separate binary files. The program ESRI ArcGIS is the main software for working with data of this format. The GDI BLN format is the Golden Software BLN format extended version for obtaining X, Y and Z data for isolines, elevation marks, lakes and rivers that are needed for making of HN.

Salsola kali is considered extremely valuable as an energy crop worldwide because it adapts easily to environments with strong abiotic stresses (hydric, saline and alkaline) and produces large amounts of biomass in drylands. This species is categorized as an important weed in Argentina. The aim of this work was to design an agro-ecological zoning model for tumbleweed in Argentina, employing a Geography Information System. Based on the bioclimatic requirements for the species and the climatic data for Argentina (1981–2010 period), an agro-climatic suitability map was drawn. This map was superimposed on the saline and alkaline soil maps delineated by the Food and Agriculture Organization for dry climates, generating the agro-ecological zoning on a scale of 1 : 500 000. This zoning revealed very suitable and suitable cultivation areas on halomorphic soils. The potential growing areas extend from N of the Salta province (approximately 22° S) to the Santa Cruz province (50° S). The use of tumbleweed on halomorphic soils under semi-arid to arid conditions, for the dual purpose of forage use and source of lignocellulosic material for bioenergy, could improve agricultural productivity in these lands. Furthermore, it could also contribute to their environmental sustainability, since the species can be used to reclaim saline soils over the years. Based on international bibliography, the authors outlined an agro-ecological zoning model. This model may be applied to any part of the world, using the agro-ecological limits presented here. Fil: Falasca, Silvia Liliana. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación de Recursos Naturales. Instituto de Clima y Agua; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Pitta Alvarez, Sandra Irene. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Micología y Botánica. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Micología y Botánica; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental; Argentina Fil: Ulberich, Ana Cristina. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Humanas. Centro de Investigaciones Ecogeográficas y Ambientales; Argentina