Factor analysis of destructive factors and risks of land use: the impact of military-economic crises, degradation processes and transaction costs

<jats:p>Land use serves as the fundamental basis for a nation’s spatial, ecological, and socio-economic development. However, military aggression and long-term soil depletion have created a socio-ecological and economic crisis in Ukraine, causing significant depreciation of land assets and removing vast agricultural areas from economic circulation. The purpose of the study is to provide theoretical and methodological substantiation of the impact of military-ecological destruction and institutional transaction costs on land-use sustainability, assess spatial-economic and pedo-ecological disparities, and formulate comprehensive recovery mechanisms. The article conceptualizes the destructive factor and integrated risk of land use under exogenous shocks. It is revealed that between 139 and 174 thousand square kilometers (up to 28% of Ukraine’s territory) require survey for explosive hazards. Total ecological losses exceed 4.0 trillion UAH, with direct damage from land contamination reaching 1.34 trillion UAH. Spatial-economic analysis highlights extreme regional disparities: in the Eastern and Southern clusters, the economic disproportion coefficient (decontamination costs divided by market land value) ranges from 1.7 to 2.7. This indicates a complete collapse of private investment incentives for land restoration in the absence of state or international aid. Furthermore, the study identifies severe symptoms of military pedogenesis: heavy metal and chemical toxicity, structural degradation of the soil matrix (silt content drops while sand fraction increases by 1.2–1.8 times), extreme subsoil compaction, and biological dysbiosis where soil toxicity reaches 99.8% and total microbial biomass declines by more than two times. Restoring land use sustainability cannot be achieved through isolated measures. Overcoming systemic risks requires a synergistic framework that combines public financing for demining, ecologically differentiated soil remediation, and the reduction of institutional transaction friction in the land market to ensure long-term food security and agricultural viability. Keywords: land use, military pedogenesis, transaction costs, soil degradation, demining, land market, ecological damage, land use risk.</jats:p>