This distinguished PhD thesis contains reviews of three main interrelated issues: land fragmentation, land consolidation, and land relocation. Land fragmentation is a major problem in many countries.

Following an introductory chapter, chapter 2 addresses the origins of land fragmentation, along with an analysis of its advantages and disadvantages. The chapter is valuable as a critical review of the problem. The next two chapters, “Land Consolidation” and “Land Reallocation,” follow the same model established in chapter 2. They contain extensive reviews and analysis of the problems, with a focus on the European Union (EU) evaluation framework.

The main value of the book comes from chapter 5, “System Development Framework,” which describes the development of the spatial decision-making framework and its concrete implementation in spatial expert systems for planning. The output integrates an expert system with multi-criteria decision techniques and geographic information systems (GIS). The proposed framework uses four modules for measuring land fragmentation, generating alternative land redistribution plans, and evaluating and optimizing these plans. The book’s remaining chapters present a case study and explore these modules.

Overall, the book’s most interesting topics, spatial planning and GIS, are clearly presented. The book may serve as a framework and example for practical research in the application of modern GIS and expert system techniques for urban and land planning problems.