Announcements

The articles below have been selected as 2022 Issue Cover Articles by the Editorial Office of Land (ISSN: 2073-445X). These articles came from multiple fields within the scope of Land and we hope they can provide insights and references for scholars in related fields.

As we reflect on the past year, the Editor-in-Chief Prof. Christine Fürst and all the staff from the Land Editorial Office extend great thanks to all who have contributed to the development of Land. We wish you all a joyful holiday season and a happy New Year filled with outstanding achievements. Let us welcome a few of our Editorial Board Members to express our gratitude and best wishes for the coming year.

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, IF: 3.905) is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modeling and data processing, ecosystem services, and multifunctionality and sustainability, etc., published monthly online by MDPI. The International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), European Land-use Institute (ELI), Landscape Institute (LI), and Urban Land Institute (ULI) are affiliated with Land, and their members receive a discount on the Article Processing Charge.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the MDPI Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the Issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars who may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mailing invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Performing editorial control of the Special Issue and quality control of the publications, both of which must be carried out in a timely manner;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
• Making and submitting decisions regarding submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Editorial Office of a journal you choose, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. The full list of MDPI journals is as follows: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, we will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

MDPI has just become the first open access (OA) publisher to reach the milestone of one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon! We are proud to share this special moment with the global scientific community.

This landmark has been reached thanks to the immeasurable support of more than 600,000 expert reviewers, 66,000 editorial board members and 6700 hard-working colleagues across MDPI’s global offices.

Within more than 25 years of publishing, our journals received 2.1 million manuscripts and generated 4.6 million peer review reports to get to one million papers published.

Reaching the milestone of one million articles published reinforces our mission to remove any existing barriers and to make scientific research accessible to all. Since its inception, MDPI’s goal has been to create reliable processes to make science open. This is a path towards facilitating the dissemination of novel insights in scientific communities.

Regular feedback from authors and reviewers shows that our service is greatly appreciated and needed. At the same time, the feedback helps us identify areas for further improvement.

As it stands, a significant share of published research findings remain closed access. More than half of the content published with the most well-known legacy publishers stays behind a paywall, and that is not including articles published in hybrid OA journals, or made available months or years after publication.

A new policy announced by the US administration in August 2022 requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. While the new policy does not mandate articles be published under an open access license, it is aligned with the open access movement in removing all barriers to research. Similarly, some of the most advanced research institutions in the world intend to have all funded research articles published in open access by 2025.

MDPI is proud to be the leading agent of the transition to open access.

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

We are pleased to announce that the website of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation has been revamped! For the past couple of months, our UX UI team and front-end developers have been working hard to launch the website in time for the opening of the Sustainability Awards nominations.

The website is not the only thing that has had a remodeling. Indeed, the format of the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award (ESLA) has been updated. ESLA is now a competition open to individual researchers or start-ups founded by researchers under the age of 35. Nominee applications will go through 2 rounds of selection until the final 3 are decided. The finalists will then be invited to give pitch presentations during the Award Ceremony to win either first place (10,000 USD) or runner-up (2 x 5000 USD).

The World Sustainability Award, on the other hand, remains the same: a total prize money of 100,000 USD is up for grabs by senior individual researchers or groups of researchers from the international research community.

Nominations for both the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader award are now open! Check out our new website for more information on how to nominate.

Recently, Clarivate™ revealed its 2022 list of Highly Cited Researchers™—individuals at universities, research institutes and commercial organizations.

The scientists who were selected for this year’s list of Highly Cited Researchers have published highly cited papers in the 11-year period from January 2011 to December 2021, with citation frequency in the top 1% of academic subjects and the same year of publication in the Web of Science^TM database. Based on the Web of Science Citation data, 6,938 researchers from across the globe who have demonstrated a disproportionate level of significant and broad influence in their chosen field or fields over the last decade have been awarded Highly Cited Researcher 2022 designations. The list is truly global, spanning 69 countries or regions and spread across a diverse range of research sciences and social sciences.

According to statistics, 13 Editorial Board Members of Land (ISSN: 2073-445X) have been featured on the list of Highly Cited Researchers of Clarivate in 2022. They are being recognized for their high-quality scientific research achievements and outstanding contributions to professional fields. The Land journal office sincerely congratulates all elected Editorial Board Members and hopes that they continue to have an academically productive relationship with the journal.

We are pleased to inform you that the open access journal Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, IF: 3.905) has been indexed in the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR): Area 08, Area 11, Area 14, and Class A - Sector 14/D1. We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to all authors, reviewers, and editors who have contributed to this journal and enabled this achievement.

Land is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil–sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modelling and data processing, ecosystem services, and multifunctionality and sustainability, etc., published monthly online by MDPI. The International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), European Land-use Institute (ELI), Landscape Institute (LI), and Urban Land Institute (ULI) are affiliated with Land, and their members receive a discount on the Article Processing Charge.

We warmly welcome you to consider Land as the platform for publishing your work.

Land Editorial Office

MDPI will be attending the 2022 BES Annual Meeting, held in Edinburgh, UK, from 18 to 21 December 2022. Throughout the conference, prominent researchers and government officials will give keynote speeches on pressing issues of ecology. The 2022 BES Annual Meeting provides an excellent opportunity for participants from industry and academia to keep up to date with the latest trends in ecology.

During this conference, MDPI will welcome researchers from different backgrounds to visit and share their latest views and research with us.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Sustainability;
• Birds;
• Urban Science;
• Land;
• Earth;
• Climate.

If you plan on attending this conference, feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions that you may have.

For more information about the conference, please see the following link: https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/events/bes-annual-meeting-2022.

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, IF 3.905) has launched the Section “Land Socio-Economic and Political Issues” in November 2019, for which Prof. Dr. Hossein Azadi serves as Editor-in-Chief. This Section welcomes contributions concerning different land policies and the nexus of human–land–environment tied with contemporary and historical land issues.

We are pleased to present the Editor’s Choice Articles of the Section “Land Socio-Economic and Political Issues” in 2020–2021, for which a snapshot of high-quality papers from the Section "Land Socio-Economic and Political Issues" is listed below:

1. “Quantifying the Economic Value of Ecosystem Services in Oil-Palm-Dominated Landscapes in Riau Province in Sumatra, Indonesia”
by Aulia, Ando Fahda, Harpinder Sandhu and Andrew C. Millington
Land 2020, 9(6), 194; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9060194
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/6/194

2. “Challenges of Food Waste Governance”
by Garske, Beatrice, Katharine Heyl, Felix Ekardt, Lea Moana Weber and Wiktoria Gradzka
Land 2020, 9(7), 231; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9070231
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/7/231

3. “3D Property Research from a Legal Perspective Revisited”
by Paasch, Jesper M. and Jenny Paulsson
Land 2021, 10(5), 494; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10050494
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/5/494?type=check_update&version=2

4. “Spatial Targeting of Agricultural Support Measures: Indicator-Based Assessment of Coverages and Leakages”
by LaFevor, Matthew C., Alexandra G. Ponette-González, Rebecca Larson and Leah M. Mungai
Land 2021, 10(7), 740; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10070740
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/7/740

5. “An Effectiveness Study on the Use of Different Types of LID for Water Cycle Recovery in a Small Catchment”
by Kim, Heenyun and Gunwoo Kim
Land 2021, 10(10), 1055; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10101055
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/10/1055

Submitting a manuscript:
This Section is currently open for submissions. Papers may be submitted via the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload/?journal=land.

Launching a Special Issue:
You have the opportunity to propose hot topics and edit a Special Issue together with experts in the field: https://www.mdpi.com/journalproposal/sendproposalspecialissue/land.

Joining the Editorial Board:
If you are an active researcher in the field of land and are interested in joining the Editorial Board, please do not hesitate to contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position.

Land Editorial Office

Peer reviewing constitutes an essential part of the publication process, ensuring that Land (ISSN: 2073-445X) maintains its high standards for the quality of its published papers. We are looking to recruit expert reviewers to help uphold the quality and efficiency of Land.

To qualify as a reviewer, applicants must have published around eight papers related to land science in the last 5 years and hold a Ph.D. degree.

We will extend the following benefits to reviewers:

• Reviewers will receive a discount voucher code based on the review quality;
• Reviewers will be included in the journal’s annual acknowledgment of reviewers; more details can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/2/215 ;
• Reviewers will be considered for the journal’s outstanding reviewer award; details can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/awards;
• Reviewers may be invited to join the Reviewer Board; see https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/submission_reviewers for more information;
• Reviewers can build their profile on Publons and have their reviewing activity automatically added for participating journals. Publons profiles can also be integrated into ORCID.

For more information about the role, please visit the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

If you are interested in this position, please submit your application at https://susy.mdpi.com/volunteer/journals/review. We hope you will join us on our team of reviewers.

After your registration is approved, you will be able to see a list of manuscripts for which reviewers are needed.

If you have any other questions, please contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com). We look forward to hearing from you.

Land Editorial Office