Theoretical analysis of the legal, reference and scientific-methodological literature regarding the definition and interpretation of the concepts of rural areas and their constituent structural-organizational or framework were сarried out; their structural components and organizational features were esteblished. The structural and organizational framework of rural areas has been developed to justify the socio-economic-ecological potential for the environmental assessment of their condition and development. The types of socio-economic and ecological potential were defined: institutional and infrastructural – by levels of administration and local government (administrative hierarchy, institutional organization, administrative operation, agroecological education, health and social welfare municipal services); spatial – by types of nature utilization (agricultural land, non-agricultural lands, water management, fisheries, forestry, environmental protection and their spatial distribution, spatial location, geographic location); industrial and economic – by the types of agricultural production (livestock, crop growing, processing, agricultural service, tourism, historic, cultural and natural history and environmental protection); cultural and innovative – by direction of cultures of mutual transformation (informational, communicative, ethnographic); natural resources – by specific resource and resource recovery orientation to determine the environmental conditions and characteristics of agricultural landscapes in some ecological situations and setting the levels of environmental safety. Levels of quality of life, life support, life protection under the study of rural areas are set by the main factors, such as social activity (mobility) and responsibility; economic feasibility (efficiency); environmental safety (stability); biological capacity (capacity) and usefulness.

Здійснено теоретичний аналіз нормативно-правової, довідкової і науково-методичної літератури щодо визначення і трактування понять «сільські території» та складових їх структурно-організаційної будови, а також встановлено їх структурні складові й організаційні особливості. Розроблено структурно-організаційну будову сільських територій для обґрунтування соціо-економіко-екологічного потенціалу під час еколо- гічного оцінювання їх стану і розвитку.