Sustainable Landscapes: Integrating Physical Geography, Ecotourism, and Nature Conservation

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to explore the synergy between physical geography, ecotourism, and the protection of nature in promoting sustainable landscape management. As tourism increasingly intersects with fragile natural environments, understanding the physical characteristics of landscapes and their ecological sensitivities becomes essential for planning, conservation, and policy-making.

We welcome the submission of interdisciplinary articles that analyze how physical geography informs sustainable ecotourism practices, assess the impacts of tourism on natural landscapes, or propose innovative conservation strategies grounded in geomorphology, hydrology, biogeography, and climate science.

The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:

• The role of physical geography in site selection and planning in ecotourism;
• Geospatial analysis (GIS, remote sensing, UAV/drone surveys) of impacts of tourism and land-cover change;
• Carrying capacity and vulnerability mapping of tourist areas;
• Best practices in integrating tourism with conservation policy, zoning, fees, and permit systems;
• Protected-area visitor management, recreational ecology design, and low-impact trail development;
• Community-based ecotourism and landscape preservation;
• Climate change implications for ecotourism in sensitive regions;
• Natural hazards and tourism risk assessment;
• Site selection and planning based on geomorphology, hydrological resilience, and landscape vulnerability;
• Carrying capacity assessments, vulnerability mapping, and risk analysis for natural hazards;
• Valuation of ecosystem services and nature-based solutions (e.g., green infrastructure, dune or peatland restoration);
• Blue–green space integration, sustainable mobility planning, and climate change adaptation for sensitive regions;
• Technology-enhanced visitor experience and real-time crowd analytics (AR/VR, mobile apps);
• Environmental education and visitor awareness: interpretive programs, learning trails, community outreach;
• Monitoring and indicators: long-term biodiversity, water quality and visitor-pressure tracking;
• Geo-heritage interpretation and cultural landscapes: integrating local/indigenous knowledge;
• Socio-economic assessments of ecotourism: livelihood impacts, benefit-sharing, valuation studies;
• Karst geomorphology and cave dynamics: processes shaping karst landscapes, speleogenetic mapping, and implications for underground ecotourism;
• Slope stability and erosion control: assessment of landslide susceptibility, sediment budgets, and nature-based mitigation measures along hiking trails;
• Paleoclimate proxies and geo-heritage: using soils, fluvial sediments, and speleothem records to interpret past environments and enrich visitor interpretation.
• Natural-hazard geomorphology: volcanic, seismic or glacial hazard mapping and risk-informed trail design in vulnerable mountain or coastal destinations.

Dr. Sanja Obradović Strålman
Dr. Nikola Milentijević
Dr. Ioannis Charalampopoulos
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. Earth 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 1400 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.

• physical geography
• ecotourism planning
• geomorphology
• gis and remote sensing
• carrying capacity
• ecosystem services
• community engagement
• protected‐area management
• climate adaptation
• agroclimate
• bioclimate
• nature‐based solutions