Landscape Restoration in Fragmented Ecosystems: Innovations and Challenges

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Landscape Ecology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2026 | Viewed by 655

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Architecture, University of Bologna, 40136 Bologna, Italy
Interests: landscape planning; decision-support systems; resilience; project economic appraisal; scenario building
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Architecture and Design, University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, 89124 Reggio Calabria, Italy
Interests: cultural landscape; heritage enhancement and conservation; local economic development; sustainability in heritage and urban planning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
CMAT, University of Minho, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal
Interests: mathematical modeling; ordinary differential equations; landscape ecology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Landscape systems worldwide are experiencing rapid and often irreversible transformations driven by climate change, urbanization processes, evolving socio-economic conditions, and changing patterns of human behavior. These changes generate complex challenges for sustainable land management, ecosystem resilience, and the well-being of local communities. Advances in forecasting techniques, mathematical and computational modeling, and participatory approaches provide valuable tools to better understand landscape dynamics and to design effective restoration, mitigation, and adaptation strategies. As societies and the global agenda increasingly prioritize carbon and energy neutrality, the integration of mathematical and computational modeling with behavioral and social insights becomes crucial for developing land-use solutions that are both environmentally robust and socially equitable.

The aim of this Special Issue is to gather high-quality, cutting-edge research that advances knowledge on land systems and supports evidence-based decision-making for sustainable landscape futures. In alignment with the journal’s scope, this Special Issue seeks to highlight interdisciplinary work that bridges natural sciences, social sciences, and technological innovation to address pressing land-use and climate-related challenges. We invite contributions that offer original research papers, empirical evidence, methodological contributions, conceptual frameworks, and review papers that can guide policy, planning, and community-based actions and provide actionable insights for decision-makers.

This Special Issue welcomes manuscripts addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

  • Landscape restoration, enhancement, and resilience.
  • Forecasting methods, econometric approaches, and decision-support tools.
  • Human behavior, social impact, and community engagement in land-use change.
  • Mathematical and computational modelling for sustainable land management.
  • Climate emergency responses, mitigation pathways, and adaptation strategies.
  • Carbon neutrality, energy transition, and land-based climate solutions.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Vanessa Assumma
Dr. Lucia Della Spina
Dr. Ana Jacinta Soares
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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. Land 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

  • landscape restoration and enhancement
  • forecasting and econometric models
  • human behavior and social impact
  • mathematical modelling
  • climate emergency
  • carbon and energy neutrality

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

23 pages, 1903 KB  
Article
Identifying the Nonlinear Impact Mechanisms of Urban Park Vitality: A Case Study of Changsha
by Yong Cai, Jia Duan, Liwei Qin and Sheng Jiao
Land 2026, 15(2), 231; https://doi.org/10.3390/land15020231 - 29 Jan 2026
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 441
Abstract
Urban parks play an increasingly important role in supporting social interaction, ecological services, and everyday well-being in rapidly urbanizing cities, yet prevailing planning practices still rely on equal-provision logics and linear modeling frameworks, implicitly assuming that park vitality increases proportionally with facilities and [...] Read more.
Urban parks play an increasingly important role in supporting social interaction, ecological services, and everyday well-being in rapidly urbanizing cities, yet prevailing planning practices still rely on equal-provision logics and linear modeling frameworks, implicitly assuming that park vitality increases proportionally with facilities and surrounding services. Such assumptions overlook the possibility that park vitality responds to built-environment factors in nonlinear, threshold-based, and configuration-dependent ways. This study develops an interpretable machine learning approach to identify the nonlinear effects and structural configurations that drive urban park vitality in Changsha, China. We integrate Baidu Huiyan population heat data with AOI-defined park boundaries and multi-source POI indicators to characterize internal facilities and surrounding built-environments for 147 parks in the city’s main urban area. An XGBoost model is trained to predict park vitality, and SHAP values, partial dependence analysis, and bivariate interaction plots are employed to examine variable importance, threshold behaviors, and synergistic or substitutive relationships among key factors. The results show that sports and leisure facilities are the most influential driver of vitality, followed by shopping services and government service facilities. Their impacts are strongly nonlinear: sports and leisure facilities and public amenities display clear saturation thresholds, while high-density shopping services generate substantial gains in vitality only beyond specific concentration levels. Interaction effects further indicate that park vitality emerges from particular configurations of internal facilities and surrounding residential and service environments, rather than from the additive accumulation of isolated factors. These findings demonstrate the value of interpretable machine learning for shifting urban park planning from equal-provision paradigms toward structurally informed configuration strategies and more efficient public space governance. Full article
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