Bulgaria has a long tradition of smallholder farming, predominantly producing for self-consumption. As a result of land reform and farm restructuring, many rural households received agricultural land. Some developed commercial farms but most households stayed as subsistence farmers and used their small pieces of land to produce for self-consumption and market the excess output to top up their non-farm incomes or meagre pensions. They had little capital and insecure access to markets.

Urbanization involves expansion of the amount of land covered by urban uses. Rural to urban land conversion (RULC) can satisfy demand for the additional space that growing cities require. However, there can be negative consequences, such as the loss of productive agricultural land and/or the destruction of natural habitats. Considerable interest therefore exists among policy makers and researchers regarding how the efficiency of RULC can be maximized.

Spatial management consists of land property and land use management, both on land and in the ocean. From the perspective of ‘social-ecological systems’, local spatial management represented the resilience of adaptation that indigenous knowledge and environment change were interrelated. This study aims to extract critical components that contribute to the dynamic maintenance of the stability and sustainability of local spatial management.