One of the 34 themes of the spatial datasets of Directive 2007/2/EC INSPIRE is ‘land use’, rightly described independently of ‘land cover’. Laws in most countries, apart from the Netherlands, do not consider the electronic form of plans as a legally binding document. As far as the elaboration step and the adoption step are concerned, the main land use requirement is related to the datasets that describe existing land use at present and in the past. Surveys and case studies concern Poland and were carried out in two stages, I in 2011–2013 and II in 2017–2019.

Cities nowadays are the most significant source of environmental degradation threatening local and global ecosystems. Interestingly, many ancient settlements present excellent lessons and inspiration for addressing our current urban predicaments, given their environmental stewardship. This research explores how the ecologically embedded settlement patterns, building configurations, urban agriculture and home gardening, and water conservation of the Maya-built environment can offer insights about mitigating contemporary urban sustainability challenges.

The government of Benin in 2013 decided upon a centralized land administration, with the purpose of recording the entire national territory in one land administration system to promote durable economic development by increasing legal certainty in real estate transactions. This is a major challenge, given that currently, of the estimated 5 million cadastral parcels, less than 60,000 parcels have a land title and are registered in the national land administration agency’s central database.

Land is a critical factor of production for improving the living conditions of people everywhere. The search for tools (or approaches or strategies or methods) for ensuring that land challenges are resolved in ways that quickly respond to local realities is what led to the development of the fit-for-purpose land administration. This article provides evidence that the fit-for-purpose land administration—as a land-based instrument for development—represents an unprecedented opportunity to provide tenure security in Africa.

Cambodia has experienced rapid economic growth due partly to excessive natural resource extraction. Land conflicts have been pervasive between local communities and companies that invest in land and other natural resources. Despite substantial research into land conflict resolution, knowledge about how land is returned to wronged parties and what happens to the returned land is fragmented. This review aims to provide a holistic understanding of land restitution in Cambodia by examining different types of land conflict, actors involved, and restitution processes.

In South Africa, land tenure security is a challenge for 60% or more of the population who hold interests in land outside of the formal system of registered title. There is a need for the cadastral and land administration systems to be reshaped, and for new land tenure forms to be developed to record all land rights and interests so as to improve land tenure security for all.

Access to land for many people in Africa is insecure and continues to pose risks to poverty, hunger, forced evictions, and social conflicts. The delivery of land tenure in many cases has not been adequately addressed. Fit-for-purpose spatial frameworks need to be adapted to the context of a country based on simple, affordable, and incremental solutions toward addressing these challenges. This paper looked at three case studies on the use of the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) tool in promoting the development of a fit-for-purpose land administration spatial framework.

After the political change in Nepal of 1951, leapfrog land policy improvements have been recorded, however, the land reform initiatives have been short of full success. Despite a land administration system based on cadaster and land registries in place, 25% of the arable land with an estimated 10 million spatial units on the ground are informally occupied and are off-register. Recently, a strong political will has emerged to ensure land rights for all.

Recent policies in China have encouraged rural-urban circular migration and an “amphibious” and flexible status of settlement, reacting against the recent risks of economic fluctuation in cities. Rural land, as a form of insurance and welfare, can handle random hazards, and the new Land Management Law guarantees that rural migrants who settle in the city can maintain their rights to farmland, homesteads, and a collective income distribution.

Strong national institutional arrangements in the geospatial information management are essential for successful implementation of sustainable land administration system. However, it is not only the existence of institutions but also their effectiveness that leads to the intended goals and reaching of objectives.

Suburban growth and its impacts on surface runoff were investigated using the soil conservation service curve number (SCS-CN) model, compared with the integrated advanced remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS)-based integrated approach, over South Kingston, Rhode Island, USA. This study analyzed and employed the supervised classification method on four Landsat images from 1994, 2004, 2014, and 2020 to detect land-use pattern changes through remote sensing applications. Results showed that 68.6% urban land expansion was reported from 1994 to 2020 in this suburban area.

Diffuse water pollution from agriculture (DWPA) is one of the major factors causing water pollution in Lakes Palić and Ludaš, the two largest shallow lakes of the Pannonian Basin in Serbia. These two lakes are protected under national and international law. On the basis of the number of strictly protected bird species, Ludaš Lake has been classified as a wetland of international importance since 1977 (Ramsar site 3YU002); in 2021, both lakes were nominated as potential Natura 2000 areas. Despite the degree of protection and ecological significance of the area, agricultural land prevails.