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Understanding Disasters in a Changing Landscape: Causes, Impacts and Mitigation...
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Understanding Disasters in a Changing Landscape: Causes, Impacts and Mitigation Strategies

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land, Soil and Water".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2025 | Viewed by 6117

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Fotis Maris

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, 67100 Xanthi, Greece
Interests: mountainous water management; hydrogeomorphology; hydrometeorology; flood risk analysis; flash floods; urban floods; flood management and control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Panagiotis Angelidis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, 67100 Xanthi, Greece
Interests: rainfall-runoff simulation; flood routing through rivers and reservoirs; floods in large hydrologic basins with existence of dams and functioning of hydraulic engineering works; hydrodynamic and environmental simulations
Dr. George Papaioannou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Forestry and Management of the Environment and of Natural Resources, Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, Democritus University of Thrace, 68200 Orestiada, Greece
Interests: flood modelling and mapping; extreme hydrological events; flood early warning; mountain river training; mountainous water management; surface hydrology; erosion and sediment transport processes; GIS applications in hydrology; uncertainty analysis in hydrology; water resources management; flash floods; flood management and control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue invites contributions that delve into the multifaceted realm of land-related disasters and their aftermath. We are increasingly seeing climate or human-driven changes in land cover or land uses, which are often accompanied by risks that are difficult to predict, model, assess in terms of their complex impacts, and mitigate.

Land change-related hazards include floods, soil erosion, sediment transport, geomorphological changes, and landslides that occur after, e.g., wildfires, desertification, or other human-driven alterations, such as deforestation and urbanization. Such hazards are associated with vast economic losses, extensive infrastructure damage, and the loss of human lives.

This call encourages interdisciplinary research, from fields such as environmental science, geography, geology, engineering, and urban planning. We invite scholars, researchers, and practitioners to contribute their insights, methodologies, and innovative solutions to foster a deeper understanding of the broader spectrum of land-related disasters and promote resilient communities. A cross-disciplinary, geographically extended, and gender-balanced group of experts will be invited to contribute to this novel call, with papers related to the improved understanding of land-related changes and their subsequent natural hazards, in terms of modelling, new technologies and applications, management, impact assessment, risk evaluation, mitigation strategies, and state-of-the-art advances in the recent literature.

The present Special Issue is expected to be a novel, broad, and interdisciplinary call, addressing an emerging issue that has received limited attention in the literature so far, as the post-land use change impacts and hazards span across the broad readership of the Land journal.

Prof. Dr. Fotis Maris
Prof. Dr. Panagiotis Angelidis
Dr. George Papaioannou
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.

Keywords

  • floods
  • soil erosion
  • landslide
  • sediment dynamics
  • wildfire-induced changes in land use patterns
  • post-disaster rehabilitation and resilience building
  • modelling advances in flood, soil erosion, sediment, or landslide hazards, impacts, and mitigation
  • technological innovations for early warning systems
  • land-related hazards and risk assessment
  • geomorphology changes after land alternations
  • wildfires
  • impact assessment
  • mitigation strategies
  • uncertainty

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 14330 KiB  
Article
Prediction Capability of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in Badland Susceptibility Mapping: The Foglia River Basin (Italy) Case of Study
by Margherita Bianchini, Stefano Morelli, Mirko Francioni and Roberta Bonì
Land 2025, 14(3), 651; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14030651 - 19 Mar 2025
Viewed by 727
Abstract
Badland morphologies are prominent examples of linear erosion occurring on clay-rich slopes and are critical hotspots for sediment production. Traditional field-based mapping of these features can be both time-consuming and costly, particularly over larger basins. This research proposes a novel methodology for assessing [...] Read more.
Badland morphologies are prominent examples of linear erosion occurring on clay-rich slopes and are critical hotspots for sediment production. Traditional field-based mapping of these features can be both time-consuming and costly, particularly over larger basins. This research proposes a novel methodology for assessing badland susceptibility through a multi-criteria decision-making framework known as the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). This methodology, developed and tested in the Foglia River basin of the Marche region (Italy), facilitates the identification and mapping of badland areas. More in detail, our study resulted in the creation of a comprehensive badland inventory and susceptibility map for the 102 km2 study area, identifying 276 badlands using a combination of satellite imagery, historical orthophotos, existing regional inventories, and field inspections. Key predisposing factors, including geological, land use, topographical, and hydrometric elements, were systematically analyzed using the AHP approach. The research findings indicate that badlands develop in medium to steep slopes oriented towards the southern quadrants and in proximity to watercourses; their formation is predominantly influenced by clayey–sandy lithology. The resulting inventory and susceptibility map serve as relevant tools for monitoring, preventing, and mitigating slope instability risks within the region. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Understanding Disasters in a Changing Landscape: Causes, Impacts and Mitigation Strategies)
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18 pages, 14396 KiB  
Article
Multi-Temporal Assessment of Soil Erosion After a Wildfire in Tuscany (Central Italy) Using Google Earth Engine
by Francesco Barbadori, Pierluigi Confuorto, Bhushan Chouksey, Sandro Moretti and Federico Raspini
Land 2024, 13(11), 1950; https://doi.org/10.3390/land13111950 - 19 Nov 2024
Viewed by 1205
Abstract
The Massarosa wildfire, which occurred in July 2022 in Northwestern Tuscany (Italy), burned over 800 hectares, leading to significant environmental and geomorphological issues, including an increase in soil erosion rates. This study applied the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model to estimate [...] Read more.
The Massarosa wildfire, which occurred in July 2022 in Northwestern Tuscany (Italy), burned over 800 hectares, leading to significant environmental and geomorphological issues, including an increase in soil erosion rates. This study applied the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model to estimate soil erosion rates with a multi-temporal approach, investigating three main scenarios: before, immediately after, and one-year post-fire. All the analyses were carried out using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform with free-access geospatial data and satellite images in order to exploit the cloud computing potentialities. The results indicate a differentiated impact of the fire across the study area, whereby the central parts suffered the highest damages, both in terms of fire-related RUSLE factors and soil loss rates. A sharp increase in erosion rates immediately after the fire was detected, with an increase in maximum soil loss rate from 0.11 ton × ha−1 × yr−1 to 1.29 ton × ha−1 × yr−1, exceeding the precautionary threshold for sustainable soil erosion. In contrast, in the mid-term analysis, the maximum soil loss rate decreased to 0.74 ton × ha−1 × yr−1, although the behavior of the fire-related factors caused an increase in soil erosion variability. The results suggest the need to plan mitigation strategies towards reducing soil erodibility, directly and indirectly, with a continuous monitoring of erosion rates and the application of machine learning algorithms to thoroughly understand the relationships between variables. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Understanding Disasters in a Changing Landscape: Causes, Impacts and Mitigation Strategies)
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21 pages, 10585 KiB  
Article
Representation of a Post-Fire Flash-Flood Event Combining Meteorological Simulations, Remote Sensing, and Hydraulic Modeling
by Angelos Alamanos, George Papaioannou, George Varlas, Vassiliki Markogianni, Anastasios Papadopoulos and Elias Dimitriou
Land 2024, 13(1), 47; https://doi.org/10.3390/land13010047 - 31 Dec 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2948
Abstract
Wildfires are an escalating global threat, jeopardizing ecosystems and human activities. Among the repercussions in the ecosystem services of burnt areas, there are altered hydrological processes, which increase the risks of flash floods. There is limited research addressing this issue in a comprehensive [...] Read more.
Wildfires are an escalating global threat, jeopardizing ecosystems and human activities. Among the repercussions in the ecosystem services of burnt areas, there are altered hydrological processes, which increase the risks of flash floods. There is limited research addressing this issue in a comprehensive way, considering pre- and post-fire conditions to accurately represent flood events. To address this gap, we present a novel approach combining multiple methods and tools for an accurate representation of post-fire floods. The 2019 post-fire flood in Kineta, Central Greece is used as a study example to present our framework. We simulated the meteorological conditions that caused this flood using the atmospheric model WRF-ARW. The burn extent and severity and the flood extent were assessed through remote sensing techniques. The 2D HEC-RAS hydraulic–hydrodynamic model was then applied to represent the flood event, using the rain-on-grid technique. The findings underscore the influence of wildfires on flooding dynamics, highlighting the need for proactive measures to address the increasing risks. The integrated multidisciplinary approach used offers an improved understanding on post-fire flood responses, and also establishes a robust framework, transferable to other similar cases, contributing thus to enhanced flood protection actions in the face of escalating fire-related disasters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Understanding Disasters in a Changing Landscape: Causes, Impacts and Mitigation Strategies)
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