ASSESSMENT OF RECLAIMED AGRICULTURAL LAND IN LITHUANIA

Abstract

Land reclamation is the improvement of unfavorable natural conditions of used land for human needs, aiming to enhance agricultural crop growing conditions and increase soil fertility. In this regard, Lithuania is unique, as no other country in the world has such a relatively large proportion of reclaimed land—47% of the country or 87% of agricultural land area - drained by drainage systems. Drainage and other reclamation structures have been serving agriculture for almost 50 years, but today their level of depreciation in some areas of Lithuania exceed 73%. For this reason, farmers continuously face various challenges, making investments in the reclamation system essential. To reconstruct and maintain reclamation engineering structures, it is proposed to establish a reclamation fund in Lithuania. However, before assessing the need for reclamation system reconstruction, it is crucial to have accurate information and evaluate the current state of reclamation systems. Therefore, the objective of this article is to analyze the condition of reclaimed agricultural land and reclamation structures in Lithuania. The analysis of reclaimed land conditions was conducted using the Spatial Dataset of Land Drainage Condition and Waterlogging in the Territory of the Republic of Lithuania at a scale of 1:10,000 (Mel_DR10LT). The obtained results suggest that areas with decommissioned or poor-condition reclaimed land in Lithuania likely exceed 6,000 hectares. However, a fundamental problem is that some municipalities do not account for or report any data on the condition of reclaimed land in their regions, which distorts the real assessment of the state of reclaimed land and reclamation structures. Therefore, to ensure effective accounting and rational use of reclaimed land, solutions must be found to address these accounting issues.