Land, Volume 14, Issue 3

Imbalanced supplies and demands of ecosystem services (ESSD) can negatively affect human well-being. Optimizing land use patterns in cities and regions is, in fact, essential to mitigate this challenge and ensure sustainable development. In this cont...

The manner of achieving high-quality economic development in China through artificial intelligence (AI) has become a focus of academic attention. On the basis of panel data of prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2021, this research utilizes...

This study presents a comprehensive flood-hazard assessment and mapping of the Messapios River catchment in Evia Island, Greece, utilizing a combination of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and Geographic Information Systems (GISs). Flood-prone...

Local residents’ satisfaction plays a crucial role in the successful management of national parks. However, limited attention has been paid to residents’ preferences in the management of national parks, which hinders the sustainable devel...

Soil erosion is a critical factor impacting soil health and agricultural productivity, with soil erodibility often quantified using the K-factor in erosion models such as the universal soil loss equation (USLE). Traditional K-factor estimation lacks...

Research on circular development in China’s urban planning remains limited, particularly regarding marginalized groups’ actions. This study addresses the gap by examining circular practices within informal food systems in Chengdu’s...

This study examines the impact of low-carbon city policies on urban employment using panel data from 2006 to 2021. The findings reveal that these policies significantly enhance urban employment by promoting green technological innovation, which drive...

This study focuses on the interplay between ecological, demographic, and developmental factors while examining the changes in wild greens (WGs) uses in Corfu from 1970 to 2024. A comparative analysis of historical and contemporary datasets reveals a...

Cities are major contributors to global carbon emissions; however, urban parks offer substantial potential for carbon sinks. Research on factors influencing carbon capture in urban park vegetation is still limited. This study investigates 81 urban pa...

Mercury, a global pollutant with high biotoxicity, is widely distributed in soils, water bodies, and the atmosphere. Anthropogenic activities such as industrial emissions and coal combustion release large quantities of mercury into the environment, p...

Badland morphologies are prominent examples of linear erosion occurring on clay-rich slopes and are critical hotspots for sediment production. Traditional field-based mapping of these features can be both time-consuming and costly, particularly over...

Net primary productivity (NPP) is a critical indicator for evaluating the carbon sequestration potential of an ecosystem and regional sustainable development, as its spatiotemporal dynamics are jointly influenced by natural and anthropogenic factors....

The unity of material and spiritual civilization is among the important criteria for sustainable development and modernization construction. However, defining the relationship between the two has posed a challenge to researchers. In terms of spiritua...

Soil salinization significantly impacts global agricultural productivity, contributing to desertification and land degradation; thus, rapid regional monitoring of soil salinization is crucial for agricultural production and sustainable management. Wi...

Cropland abandonment (CA) is an increasingly severe global issue, with significant implications for achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger. In China, widespread CA is particularly evident in remote mountainous regions. However, the...

Sustainable landscape management requires accurately identifying the trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services (ES). Three commonly utilized approaches to quantify ES trade-off/synergy relationships include the space-for-time approach, landsc...

The scientific evaluation of landscape performance has become a critical focus in promoting landscape architecture and urban quality research. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is widely applied in digital assessments and performance studies, offeri...

Blue and green spaces are well-known for their benefits in improving urban thermal environments. However, the optimal configuration of green, blue, and grey spaces (GBGSs) for the physical and mental health of urban residents remains unclear. Therefo...

The mapping of land use/cover (LULC) types is a crucial tool for natural resource management and monitoring changes in both human and physical environments. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide high-resolution data, enhancing the capability for ac...

Assessing the value of ecosystem products over time can reflect the effectiveness of ecosystem protection and serve as a measurable indicator in national park management. This study focuses on the Three-River-Source National Park (TRSNP), located in...

As an important engine of China’s development, the Yangtze River Economic Belt faces the dual contradiction of economic growth and ecological protection. Addressing the insufficient analysis of the spatiotemporal evolution and driving mechanism...

The Syrdarya Delta, located in semi-arid and arid Central Asia, is an important water source for fertile landscapes. The environmental history of the Syrdarya Delta (SD) during the 19th and 20th centuries is a diverse and understudied subject, and it...

As a pivotal region for safeguarding China’s food security, Northeast China requires a quantitative evaluation of crop yield dynamics, planting structure shifts, and their interdependent mechanisms. Leveraging MODIS NPP data and remote sensing-...

Climate change has presented considerable challenges in the management of urban forests and trees. Varieties of studies have predicted the potential changes in species distribution by employing single-algorithm species distribution models (SDMs) to i...

The Guanzhong–Tianshui economic zone is a strategic link in China’s Belt and Road network, faces the contradiction between ecological protection and economic development, and urgently needs to construct an ecological security pattern base...

The Mediterranean Diet is a highly sustainable diet, and legumes are among the products that best characterize this concept. This study evaluates the environmental sustainability of the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) legume Phaseolus vulgari...

Along with the progression of globalized climate change, flooding has become a significant challenge in low-lying plain river network regions, where urban areas face increasing vulnerability to extreme climate events. This study explores climate-adap...

Accurately evaluating territorial space use efficiency is a prerequisite for promoting the realization of high-quality development. Existing efficiency evaluation models all treat decision making units (DMUs) as independent individuals, ignoring geos...

It is of great significance to study the impact of China’s digital economy on green innovation under present conditions. In this work, panel data were used, and research tools such as the entropy method, the Markov chain with a spatial Markov p...

This study examines how urban morphology, road configurations, and meteorological factors shape fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) dispersion in high-density urban environments, addressing a gap in block-level air quality analysis. While previous resear...

Policy guidance plays a critical role in urban expansion and development patterns, and the scientific prediction of land use change trends and the assessment of the ecological benefits of future urban development are essential for effective policy-ma...

Forests provide essential ecosystem services but face increasing threats from invasive species like Toumeyella parvicornis (pine tortoise scale). Since its introduction to Italy in 2014, this pest has severely impacted Pinus pinea forests, with a maj...

Urban parks are vital for providing cultural ecosystem services (CESs) to residents. However, few studies have explored sex-based differences in CES demand, particularly within mountainous urban parks. This study aimed to elucidate sex-based differen...

This study examines the effectiveness of torrential erosion control structures (concrete check dams) to mitigate post-fire sediment transport within the Seich Sou Forest in Thessaloniki, Greece. Four years after the fire of 1997, which burned 68% of...

Soil moisture in arid areas serves as a vital indicator for assessing hydrological scarcity and ecosystem vulnerability, particularly in Northwest China (NW China), where water resource deficits critically exacerbate environmental fragility. Soil moi...

The Jinghe River flows through the gully area of the Loess Plateau, where soil erosion is relatively severe. With the intensification of human activities, quantitatively evaluating the impact of land use/cover change (LUCC) on runoff is of paramount...

Rapid urbanization has posed serious challenges to urban land use, especially in the green and efficient use of land. However, existing research rarely combines new urbanization with urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE), despite its significant im...

Rapid urbanization over the last few decades has resulted in children growing up in cities increasingly disconnected from the natural world. A better understanding of children’s conceptions of nature in cities is needed to try to address this u...

This study focuses on the coupling and coordination between China’s new-type urbanization (NU) and transportation carbon emission efficiency (CET), revealing its spatial and temporal evolution patterns and driving factors. In recent years, the...

Agricultural systems face increasing challenges due to climate change, necessitating effective adaptation and mitigation strategies. This study investigates smallholder farmers’ perceptions of the efficacy of these strategies in The Gambia, emp...

Urban flood susceptibility has emerged as a critical challenge for cities worldwide, exacerbated by rapid urbanization. This study evaluates urban flood susceptibility under different Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) in the context of urbanizatio...

Urban heat islands (UHIs) constitute one of the most conspicuous anthropogenic impacts on local climates, characterized by elevated land surface temperatures in urban areas compared to surrounding rural regions. This study represents a novel and comp...

At the beginning of human history, surface water, especially from rivers and springs, was the most frequent water supply source. Groundwater was used in arid and semi-arid regions, e.g., eastern Crete (Greece). As the population increased, periodic w...

The issue of multi-scale driving forces within land systems has emerged as one of the pivotal research directions for innovative exploration in the field of land science. However, the understanding of the differences in driving factors across differe...

Urban land marketization is a strategy to alleviate land resource misallocation caused by government intervention, but there has been a debate regarding its effectiveness in reducing carbon emissions. This study examines the impact of market-oriented...

For tourist cities, coordination between tourism and socio-economic and natural environments is crucial for sustainable urban development. While the positive correlation between a Natural World Heritage (NWH) designation and local urban tourism growt...

Wetlands are essential carbon sinks in the global ecosystem, absorbing CO₂ in their biomass and soils and mitigating global warming. Accurate aboveground biomass (AGB) and organic carbon (Corg) estimation are crucial for wetland carbon sink research....

Territorial space (TS) is multifunctional, and exploring the relationships between functions and their influencing factors is key to achieving sustainable development of territorial space. However, existing research mostly focuses on the exploration...

Based on China’s structural transformation and the resulting rural social institutional changes, this paper clarifies how land certification affects non-agricultural employment, introducing trust culture as an informal institution and construct...

To explore how organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) are perpetual in soils and the risk they may bring, Ningbo, a city with an extensive usage history of OCPs, was selected as a case to investigate. Sixty-nine agriculture soils were taken from 0–20...