Sustainable Geoheritage Management: Education, Tourism and Public Engagement

Dear Colleagues, 

Geological heritage is globally recognized as a non-renewable natural resource. Therefore, it is crucial to prevent the loss of sites that contain significant geological features, which hold scientific, educational, and often tourist interest. To ensure conservation and appropriate use of this heritage for future generations, who will be responsible for its preservation, sustainable management practices are essential. Sustainable management encompasses practices that respect and protect the natural balance of environments, enabling their responsible use while preventing degradation and preserving their natural and cultural significance. It also includes efforts aimed at enhancing, promoting, and improving these areas. These practices and efforts are particularly important for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

To effectively manage geological heritage sustainably, a multidisciplinary and multicultural approach is essential. This approach should integrate economic, managerial, educational, geological, and conservation aspects. Often, even after identifying regions that are rich in geologically significant sites with considerable economic potential, the necessary expertise for their effective management is limited to only a few specialized fields.

This special volume aims to bring together contributions addressing the diverse challenges of sustainable management of geological heritage. By analysing geological heritage management from multiple perspectives, with the shared goal of making sites of geological interest accessible to a broad potential audience, it is possible to achieve a resilient and flexible outcome, easily adaptable to different end users' needs. The intended end users include school groups of all ages, who can engage in both outdoor and laboratory activities, as well as tourists with varying educational backgrounds and enthusiasts with advanced geological knowledge.

We invite you to contribute to this special issue by submitting scientific papers that address the complex topic of sustainable management of geological heritage from economic, social, educational, and cultural perspectives. We particularly welcome contributions that showcase best practices for fostering school tourism and geotourism, aiming to engage as broad an audience as possible.

Content examples include, but are not limited to:

1. Geoheritage and geodiversity: protection, conservation, enhancement, and tourism;
2. People's perception of geoheritage and geodiversity;
3. Education on geoheritage and geodiversity;
4. New ICT technologies for the study, protection, and management of geoheritage and geodiversity
5. New methods for assessing geodiversity;
6. Cultural function of geological heritage and geodiversity;
7. Geomatics and GIS for inventorying geological heritage and geodiversity;
8. Connecting geological heritage, geodiversity, biodiversity, and society;

Suggested themes and article types for submissions.

We would like to draw your attention to the preparation and submission of original contributions on the following topics: Study and Sustainable Management of Geological Heritage. This special issue aims to bring together scientific contributions dedicated to current studies on geological heritage, geodiversity, and how to protect and manage it sustainably. Original contributions addressing the topic of geological heritage conservation are also welcome.

The primary objective of the special issue is to update the state of the art on the following topics: study of geological heritage, geodiversity, sustainable management of geodiversity, reducing the environmental impact of geotourism, school tourism, and geoconservation.

The special issue will therefore consider updating the existing literature by integrating different research approaches, with a particular focus on sustainable development and future generations. Please contact us for further information on this special volume.

Dr. Mario Bentivenga
Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Palladino
Dr. Eva Pescatore
Dr. Marco Túlio Mendonça Diniz
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. Heritage 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 1600 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.

• sustainable geoheritage management
• geoconservation
• education
• tourism
• public engagement