For generations, people have managed natural resources in such a way that their multiple needs for food, fibre, fodder, fuel, building materials, medicinal products and drinking water were largely fulfilled. Farming, livestock, forestry and fisheries systems have evolved, and been adapted to variable and changing environmental and socio-economic conditions. Not only natural factors, but also population growth or loss, tenure arrangements, labour availability, access to markets and economic growth, as well as cultural traditions and political strategies, have shaped landscapes over time.

Land is a non-renewable resource with limited availability and, therefore, a very important issue is the preservation of useful properties of land and comprehensive and sustainable land use. The process of land and soil degradation (decline of properties) leading to the formation of degraded land have been observed due to the influence of various economic activities and environmental conditions.

The article presents an analysis of the existing situation of forests of the Republic of Lithuania. The situation is analysed in ten counties of the country. In the Republic of Lithuania, forests occupied 2,178,958.04 ha, country’s forest coverage – 33.38% in 2017. The highest forest coverage was established in Alytus (48.80%) and Vilnius (43.47%) counties. Only in three counties of Lithuania (Panevėžys, Telšiai and Utena) the prevailing type of ownership is private forests.

The territorial planning and the management of urban surfaces force the decrease of green spaces in urban landscapes. As the urbanization process during past decades of the last century was quite intensive not only in Europe but also in Lithuania, findings describing changes of forest cover as well as spatial structure of the forest land are requested.

Decomposition, nutrient, and isotopic (deltasup(13)C and deltasup(15)N) dynamics during 1 year were studied for leaf and twig litters of Pinus densiflora, Castanea crenata, Erigeron annuus, and Miscanthus sinensis growing on a highly weathered soil with constrained nutrient supply using litterbags in a cool temperate region of South Korea. Decay constant (kl year) ranged from 0.58 to 1.29/year, and mass loss ranged from 22.36 to 58.43 % among litter types.

One of the cornerstones of sustainable use of land resources is the use of land resources for the identified needs. In every country it is needed to list the land according to the type of land use. Such function of land classification in Latvia is maintained by the classification of purpose of real property use. In a certain period of time needs of the specific purposes for which the land resources are used are changing, so the aim of this study is to research changes of areas of purpose of real property use in municipalities of Latvia.

The use of forests as carbon sinks is examined by introducing carbon sequestration benefits’ accounting in a multi-vintage land allocation model. Following the IPCC, three carbon accounting methods are considered. We compare the results in each case with those without carbon sequestration, as well as the performances of the ton-year and the average methods (second-best) to the carbon flow (first-best) concerning optimal land allocation between forestry and alternative uses, total carbon sequestered, timber production and social welfare.

To understand the rainfall-runoff process and sediment delivery process in headwater catchment, hydrological observation and the monitoring of suspended sediment concentrations (SSC) was conducted at a forested headwater catchment in Japanese Alps region. The study site is Nodagasawa watershed (37 ha) within Terasawayama Station, Research Forest of Shinshu University, Japan. At this catchment, notably quick rainfall-runoff response was observed as with the runoff characteristics reported in other catchment underlain by granite.

In order to develop the original long-term cutting age management standard of Sugi (Cryptomeria japonica) plantaions in Nagasaki prefecture, site index curves and taper tables of Sugi plantations were created. 1) Site idex curves were revised up after 40-50 years on stand age, and rate of height growth was not decreased remarkably. 2) On the average relative stem curve, the determination coefficient of polynomial expression was 0.9799. 3) The new taper tables could be applied to trees whose height from 15 to 31 m and DBH from 15 to 50 cm.