Comments on some evaluation criteria for the official prioritization of land consolidation projects in Slovakia

Due to stalling land consolidation process and limited resources, Slovak administration needs to prioritize new projects.120 cadastral areas are currently selected annually based on weights and different point-scales for the criteria.It can be argued that the evaluation of the official governmental special non-departmental criteria (6) for 2023, targeted to social, environmental, landscape, and development issues, is flawed and should be modified.Normalized relative magnitudes (particularly where the areal extent of the phenomenon represented by a given criterion is measurable and data is available) are suggested.Only 4 areas from the 2023 official selection would place in the first 120 (13 in the first 500) by the simple average ranking with modified criteria values.The criteria (M1, least developed districts; M2, transport infrastructure; M3, protected natural areas; M4, protected water management areas; M5, natural disasters; M6, risk of erosion) could be complemented by 4 new ones, namely: M7, critical profiles and integrated area protection; M8, marginalized population groups; M9, strategic projects and industrial parks; M10, agro-forestry systems.Using severity of risk for a cadastral area (i.e.percentages of appropriately measured and subsequently normalized criteria) could contribute to improved selection by removing unnecessary distortion by a point scheme.