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Rural settlements (RS) are a reality of rural areas. They consist of cluster of buildings and ways of life mainly associated with activities related to agriculture. As economic policies applied in rural development have evolved, the physical delimitation of rural areas has become more important because such areas are recipients of financial support, which depends on an area's characteristics. Thus, it is necessary to formulate a new spatial approach for RS delimitation. The objective of this study is to define spatial criteria for identification and delimitation of the RS to recognize the morphological context of each RS. With respect to methodology, RS in the community of Galicia, Northwestern Spain were studied, and factors for spatial characterization were defined according to experts' evaluations. Subsequently, spatial restrictions and conditions were identified for the delimitation of boundaries. The criteria that this research proposes reveal numerically adjustable factors that can recognize and interpret the morphological characteristics of each RS, which is also evidenced by the results of RS delimitations. It can be concluded that the numerically defined criteria associated with a spatial operation allow the adaptation to the morphological characteristics of any RS, as well as spatial equity by recognizing the differentiation of building structures and land uses of each RS, rather unlike the criteria defined by the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land fractioning is a continuous process that could lead to land abandonment. In this work, the relationship between the speed of land market dynamics and land fractioning were studied and compared in two rural parishes of Ecuador. For this study, a database with relevant information extracted from land property deeds was generated for both study areas. Additionally, 193 land buyers and sellers were surveyed to determine the factors influencing/motivating land transactions. We observed a gradual increment of land fractioning with the mean ‘fractionated parcel surface’ independent of the speed of land market dynamics. Instead, the purpose assigned to the land by the actors involved in the land market seems to be the factor influencing the mean fractionated parcel surface and average parcel surface the most. The similarities of the studied areas with others inside and outside Ecuador makes the study relevant in a wider context. Our results could aid local governments in improving their land administration strategies in a deregulated land market context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the use of simulated annealing for allocation of land units to a set of possible uses on, the basis of their suitability for those uses, and the compactness of the total areas allotted to the same use or kind of use, which are fixed a priori. The results obtained for the Terra Chá district of Galicia (N.W. Spain) using different objective weighting schemes are compared with each other and with those obtained for this district under the same area constraints, using hierarchical optimization, ideal point analysis, and multi-objective land allocation (MOLA) to maximize average use suitability. Inclusion of compactness in the simulated annealing objective function avoids the highly disperse allocations typical of optimizations that ignore this sub-objective. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]