Infrastructure development and its influence on agricultural land and regional sustainable development.

The ongoing technological transformation, socially accepted and corresponding to the requirements, becomes relevant for regional development. Understanding this development requires an insight into the related driving forces. One of those, which has induced both direct and indirect changes to land use, and accelerated the urban growth, is the construction of motorways. Many studies have analysed the impact of motorway construction on changes in the landscape structure and urban land cover as well as in biological and landscape diversity, but relatively less attention has been paid to determining the impact of the infrastructure development on agricultural land and sustainable development of rural areas. We are of the opinion that applying hypotheses on infrastructure development (motorway construction) as a driving force derived from a case study can be a way of holding a more integrative view on regional sustainable development of rural areas, and can contribute to choosing the best variant of a motorway route. The aim of the paper is to present a theoretical framework and methodology for analysing the impact of a motorway on agricultural land and regional sustainable development. The change of land features and a decrease in their income value were determined by means of a simplified method. In the initial stage, it analyses the route of the motorway axis and determines the starting parameters, taking into account the width of the roadway, the category of lands taken over for the construction of the motorway, the layout (distribution) of plots, and the arrangement of existing roads and designed viaducts. The initial parameters were selected in order to ultimately enable the evaluation of the impact of the construction of the motorway on four main directions as well as the determination of the role of individual factors distinguished in this impact. The analysis provides a scientific basis for the understanding of sustainable development of rural areas and its protection in the spatial planning processes on local and regional levels. Establishing the changes of farms' value is necessary, among other things, to determine compensations for the losses caused by the motorway construction. It should be performed at the stage of elaborating the detailed design of the motorway, or immediately after completing the investment process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]