Urban Landscape Management and Planning

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Architectural Design, Urban Science, and Real Estate".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2026 | Viewed by 392

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. Faculty of Humanities and Arts, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau 999078, China
2. College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Interests: human settlement environment theory and methods; landscape perception; human settlement landscape architecture and microclimate; urban green space systems engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
College of Landscape Architecture and Art, Northwest A & F University, Yangling 712100, China
Interests: urban landscape; landscape perception and preference; biodiversity conservation; restorative environment

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Guest Editor
College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Interests: health benefits of green spaces; landscape perception; restorative environments; environmental psychology

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Guest Editor
College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Interests: rural landscape; landscape perception and preference; tourism planning
College of Architecture, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China
Interests: urban landscape; urban design; sports and health; tourism resort; AI programming
School of Design, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
Interests: socially restorative urbanism; landscape design; multi-sensory landscape perception; environmental psychology; health and well-being

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the rapid urbanization and profound socio-economic transformation occurring in the modern era, the urban landscape is undergoing unprecedented changes. Influenced by urban expansion, global climate change, and diverse social demands, future urban landscape practices should be focused on how to enhance the development of urban areas, with special attention given to the effects and mechanisms of green spaces as they relate to both psychological and physical health, aiming to improve quality of life and ensure a harmony between the built environment and human well-being.

Public health and urban landscape systems have been widely researched and discussed. Urban landscape management is evolving from the development of singular aesthetic designs towards comprehensive strategic systems that can integrate ecological, economic, social, and cultural considerations. This transformation inevitably involves multi-sector collaboration between government, academia, and the private sector, encompassing sustainable land-use solutions, green infrastructure development, big data and smart technologies, community engagement, and resilient ecosystems. These efforts are paving the way towards a sustainable urban landscape.

This Special Issue, titled “Urban Landscape Management and Planning”, will delve into foundational concepts, innovative technologies, practical cases, and planning strategies underpinning these changes in urban planning. The issue will explore the potential of the urban landscape to promote healthy behaviors and elevate life quality; the issue will also discuss how smart technologies, community engagement, and cross-disciplinary integration can infuse new vitality and sustainability into the urban landscape.

Relevant themes include, but are not limited to, the following:

  1. Impact of urban blue-green systems on public health.
  2. Planning of urban biodiversity and ecological networks.
  3. Climate change adaptation and low-carbon urban landscape design.
  4. Development of digital and smart landscape management systems.
  5. Research and emerging trends in resilient ecosystems.
  6. Human-centered urban landscape governance and community participation.
  7. Environmental justice and sustainability in urban landscape planning.
  8. Conservation and revitalization of urban historical landscapes.
  9. Management and restoration of urban waterbody landscapes.
  10. Planning and management of urban open spaces.

Prof. Dr. Binyi Liu
Prof. Dr. Ling Qiu
Dr. Mohamed Elsadek
Dr. Lin Zhang
Dr. Nan Wang
Dr. Yuting Yin
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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

  • landscape planning
  • landscape management
  • urban landscape
  • climate change
  • health behavior
  • stochastic model
  • machine learning
  • urban green space

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 2506 KB  
Article
The Functional Transformation of Green Belts: Research on Spatial Spillover of Recreational Services in Shanghai’s Ecological Park Belt
by Lin Zhang, Jiayi Liu, Jiawei Li and You Zuo
Buildings 2025, 15(17), 3076; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15173076 - 28 Aug 2025
Viewed by 268
Abstract
The establishment of a new green space system based on the green belt has become a new trend in the world. Shanghai’s Outer Ring Ecological Park Belt (formerly the Outer Green Belt) faces challenges of spatial imbalance in recreational service distribution and mismatched [...] Read more.
The establishment of a new green space system based on the green belt has become a new trend in the world. Shanghai’s Outer Ring Ecological Park Belt (formerly the Outer Green Belt) faces challenges of spatial imbalance in recreational service distribution and mismatched supply and demand in functional allocation during its transition from an ecological barrier to a recreational service provider. An approach based on spatial spillover effects serves as a critical solution to address these issues. We integrate RPS and ROS models to build an evaluation framework, map recreational service supply for 2013, 2018, and 2023, delimit core areas via MSPA, and quantify spatial spillovers with models SLM and SEM. The results show that high-value areas of recreational service levels along the ecological park belt have driven the development of neighboring areas through spatial spillovers, with this promoting effect radiating outward from the core zones. As the distance from the core areas increases, the effect weakens, with 400 m as the maximum effect boundary, 1 km as the critical spillover boundary, and unstable effects with decreased significance beyond 2 km. We further conduct localized spatial spillover analysis using representative parks as case studies. The research provides theoretical support and implementation suggestions for the planning and construction of an ecological park belt. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Landscape Management and Planning)
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