The land use and soil protection: Planning and legal regulations in Serbia

Land, as one of the basic environmental factors, is under large impact by intensive agricultural production, urbanisation, mining activities, erosion caused by anthropogenic factors, etc., which can easily result in its degradation. The unplanned land use increases the risks of degradation and reduction of the land resource. Chemical pollution, unfavourable physical and mechanical characteristics, disruption and accumulation processes, infrastructural occupancy of land represent only few forms of the land degradation. The largest portion of the land in the Republic of Serbia is covered by forests, and only then agricultural, water and construction land. The land use, management and protection is regulated by legislation and planning documents, which are the object of this paper. In the first part of the document analysis, the focus is on the review of the relevant laws adopted in Serbia, such as the Law on Forests, the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction, the Law on Environmental Protection, the Law on Land Protection, and the Law on Agricultural Land, bearing in mind the fact that the legislation forms a basis for further implementation of the planning management and supervision of the land use of all types and purposes. The other part of the review deals with the planning acts as pioneering documents in the integral overview of space, and/or all the activities in it. To that purpose, several spatial plans for different types of areas and different primary functions of land use have been chosen. In its conclusion, this paper explains the symbiosis of legislation and planning documents, and/or their implementation, as well as the significance of such symbiosis for the land function and its sustainable utilisation in the Republic of Serbia.