Landscape-Scale Modeling of Agricultural Land Use

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil and Plant Nutrition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2026 | Viewed by 189

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Information Technology Research Center, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Beijing 100097, China
Interests: ecosystem service supply; region division; land use; poi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Centre for Agricultural Research, Institute for Soil Sciences, 1116 Budapest, Hungary
Interests: climate change; cereal response; food security; land use planning

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Understanding agricultural land-use change at a landscape scale is critical for addressing pressing global challenges, including food security, biodiversity conservation, and climate change adaptation. Historically, modeling approaches have evolved from statistical analyses to sophisticated computational simulations to capture the complex drivers of land-use decisions.

This Special Issue aims to collate cutting-edge research on spatially explicit models that simulate the patterns, processes, and outcomes of agricultural land-use change. We seek contributions that advance the methodological frontier and provide actionable insights for sustainable landscape management.

We encourage submissions leveraging innovative approaches, such as integrating AI and machine learning with process-based models, coupling ecological and socio-economic drivers, and incorporating remote sensing and big data to achieve high-precision, predictive simulations at large scales.

We welcome original research, reviews, and case studies focused on the following: development of novel modeling frameworks; analyses of land-use impacts on ecosystem services; scenario exploration for sustainable intensification; and studies that effectively bridge the science-policy gap for informed decision-making.

Dr. Xiumei Tang
Dr. Zsolt Pinke
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • land-use change
  • agricultural landscape
  • spatial modeling
  • sustainability
  • ecosystem services

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

20 pages, 1989 KB  
Article
Reconstructing Millennial-Scale Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Japan’s Cropland Cover
by Meijiao Li, Caishan Zhao, Fanneng He, Shicheng Li and Fan Yang
Agronomy 2025, 15(12), 2834; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy15122834 - 10 Dec 2025
Abstract
Historical cropland cover change reconstruction is essential for understanding long-term agricultural reclamation dynamics, particularly for modeling carbon and nitrogen cycles and assessing their climatic impacts. Such reconstructions also provide critical regional benchmarks for improving global land-use datasets. In this study, we integrated historical [...] Read more.
Historical cropland cover change reconstruction is essential for understanding long-term agricultural reclamation dynamics, particularly for modeling carbon and nitrogen cycles and assessing their climatic impacts. Such reconstructions also provide critical regional benchmarks for improving global land-use datasets. In this study, we integrated historical documents and land survey records spanning the Heian period (794–1185 CE) to the present with modern remote sensing data to develop a spatially explicit methodology for reconstructing Japan’s cropland extent over the past millennium. Our analysis revealed four distinct phases of cropland area change, (1) slow expansion (800–1338 CE), (2) gradual decline (1338–1598 CE), (3) rapid growth (1598–1940 CE), and (4) sharp contraction (1940–2000 CE), with significant regional variations. Spatially, cropland progressively expanded from the core Kansai and Kantō regions toward the southwestern and northeastern frontiers. Cropland cover changes in Japan over the past millennium were driven by a combination of socio-political factors—such as technological innovations in agriculture, feudal conflicts, demographic shifts, agricultural industrialization, and urbanization—as well as natural conditions, including topography, climate, and soil texture. Validation against year-2000 remote sensing data demonstrated high accuracy, with 69.12% of grid cells showing ≤20% absolute difference and only 0.15% exceeding ±80% deviation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Landscape-Scale Modeling of Agricultural Land Use)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop