Integrating Spatial Analysis into Sustainable Urban Planning

Dear Colleagues,

Presently, sustainable urban planning has been assigned a crucial role in meeting a new and evolving combination of challenges that includes climate change, growing urbanization, and environmental degradation. Issues such as urban sprawl, rural-to-urban interactions, climate resilience, and urban sustainability underline the need for innovative approaches on how to handle the impacts of urban growth at a regional scale. Integrating spatial analysis methods into urban planning practice and research is particularly important in order to manage the spatial complexity of urban development, and to better inform spatial planning decisions involving multiple interactions between different stakeholders.

The aim of this Special Issue is to explore the latest advances in the fields of urban spatial analysis, focused on the integrated methodologies, strategies, and frameworks that are particularly suitable to guiding urban planning decisions. To this end, we seek innovative approaches addressing the urban planning dimension from a spatial analysis perspective.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following topics:

• Advanced spatial analysis tools, including spatial optimization, suitability analysis, land use/land cover modelling, and simulation modelling;
• Models and methods evaluating the environmental and climate-related parameters of urban areas to support resilience and sustainability;
• Innovative geospatial methodologies for the examination of land use conflicts and land degradation due to urbanization and urban sprawl;
• Decision support systems and tools for urban areas, handling local to global connections;
• The exploration of tools and methods for guiding sustainable urban development.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following overarching themes:

• Spatial Analysis;
• Urban Planning;
• Resilience/Sustainability.

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

Dr. Apostolos Lagarias
Dr. Despina Dimelli
Dr. Georgia Pozoukidou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.