Quantification of Land Fragmentation in Slovakia

Sa？etak During the era of socialist reconstruction the land use was intended to reach large scale agriculture – collectivization. In this period land and land ownership were separated. This situation persisted up to the present day even after the development of socio-economic circumstances. The separation of use and ownership of land, high proportion of land fragmentation and high proportion of state-held agricultural land presents acute issues in regard to land tenure in Slovakia. Current circumstances are forcing the land owner to lend their land. This paper explains that the progress of land tenure situation can be observed via measurement of changes of land fragmentation after processes such as land consolidation. It is imperative to explicitly quantify the scope of land fragmentation. Current methods of land fragmentation calculation in relation to land consolidation are rigid, ad hoc and needlessly complicated. New unified complete yet variable calculation will have wide utilization capabilities in practice. The calculation will enable monitoring of land fragmentation status as well as statistical comparisons correlating with land tenure state in Slovakia