Beyond Boundaries: Exploring the Nexus of People, Land, and Water Along Land Use Gradients

Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to contribute a manuscript to the upcoming Special Issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X) entitled “Beyond Boundaries: Exploring the Nexus of People, Land, and Water Along Land Use Gradients.” As landscapes across the globe continue to transform—often rapidly and randomly—understanding how land use gradients, from natural ecosystems to urban areas, influence the dynamic interconnection among people, land, and water is becoming increasingly important.

The core objective of this Special Issue is to examine how land use transitions—such as urban expansion, agricultural intensification, or forest conversion—affect environmental processes and human wellbeing across varying socio-temporal contexts. We are particularly interested in studies exploring dynamic interactions between these changes and their implications for land use planning and design, hydraulic and hydrologic planning, stream management and restoration, and human wellbeing. Contributions that integrate perspectives across disciplines (e.g., land management, land use planning, landscape design, landscape ecology, limnology, fisheries, aquatic biology, ecology, spatial analysis, ecological or spatial modeling, risk assessment, biological monitoring, stream restoration, environmental psychology, and stream engineering) and across regions are especially encouraged.

The Special Issue supports the journal’s goal of advancing research on landscape transformation, land governance, ecosystem services, and the socio-environmental challenges. We also aim to promote evidence-based approaches to land and water management that are both resilient and sustainable.

We welcome original research articles, reviews, and case studies that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• The impacts of land use gradients on human wellbeing, watershed health, water quality, and stream biota;
• Ecosystem service trade-offs and synergies across intensifying landscapes;
• Human perceptions, land values, and the socio-cultural dimensions of land–water interactions;
• Spatial modeling, remote sensing, or scenario analysis for land–water–people systems;
• The identification of the stressors and causes of stream impairment across land use gradients;
• The effects of land use intensification on various risks of streams (e.g., flooding, streamflow intermittency, baseflow reduction, soil erosion, sedimentation, and water storage capacity);
• Comparative studies of water quality degradation and stream impairment along urban–agricultural–natural gradients;
• (AI-assisted) spatial modeling for land–water planning.

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

Prof. Dr. Sang-Woo Lee
Dr. Lu Liang
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. 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.

• land use gradient
• people–land–water nexus
• ecological services
• GIS and spatial modeling
• rural–urban transition
• landscape governance
• aquatic ecosystems
• stream impairment and restoration
• human perception