Sustainable development of rural territories in the context of contemporary climate, socio-economic, and war-related challenges requires a shift from an administrative to a functional approach to their spatial identification and planning. The aim of this study is to explore the potential of landscape-ecological analysis for identifying Functional Rural Areas (FRAs) at different hierarchical levels of organization as objects of planning and revitalization for sustainable development. The research methodology is based on landscape-structural, landscape-functional, and landscape-organizational principles, employing a geoinformation approach, geospatial analysis of a digital elevation model and land-cover structure analysis. For territories dominated by fluvial processes, such as the Area of Interest, a hierarchical model for the spatial identification of FRAs is proposed, in which the paradynamic district corresponds to the Rural Region level, landscape tiers to Rural Areas, and landscape belts to agricultural landscapes. The approach was tested in the Inhulo-Verevchynskyi paradynamic district, covering an area of 3,430.92 km². Geospatial analysis revealed the dominance of agricultural land (45.27%) and grassland-meadow vegetation (35.14%) in the land-cover structure and enabled the identification of the internal spatial differentiation of the study area. The proposed approach provides a functional-landscape basis for spatial planning, the restoration of war-affected agricultural landscapes, the development of green-blue infrastructure, and the implementation of nature-based solutions as components of sustainable development of FRAs. Territorial communities located within FRAs are identified as subjects of economic cooperation and strategic decision-making for Sustainable Rural Development.
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