Feature Papers for "Land, Biodiversity, and Human Wellbeing" Section, Second Edition

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 March 2026) | Viewed by 1262

Special Issue Editor

Canada Research Chair (T2) in the Human Dimensions of Sustainability and Resilience, Department of Geography, Vancouver Island University, 900 Fifth Street, Nanaimo, BC V9T 6E9, Canada
Interests: tropical forest change; wildfire management; rural development and forest conservation; land use; forest transitions; payment for environmental services; REDD+; GIS/remote sensing
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Land-change dynamics affect biodiversity and, in turn, human wellbeing at societal and individual scales. Land-change dynamics are typically driven by short-term economic imperatives that rarely acknowledge their implications for biodiversity and/or human wellbeing. These implications are often somewhat removed from actual land-change dynamics or are otherwise unquantified. Human wellbeing, broadly defined, remains tenuously understood in relation to ongoing biodiversity losses driven by land change. 

This Special Issue welcomes submissions that highlight the nexus of land change, biodiversity, and wellbeing with respect to its trends, compromises, and controversies. All article types are welcome, from full empirical studies to short research notes to commentaries and reviews.

Dr. Sean Sloan
Guest Editor

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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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

  • land-change dynamics
  • biodiversity
  • human wellbeing
  • resilience
  • conservation planning

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

26 pages, 1078 KB  
Article
Nature-Based Accounting for Urban Real Estate: Traditional Architectural Wisdom and Metrics for Sustainability and Well-Being
by Ruopiao Zhang
Land 2026, 15(1), 101; https://doi.org/10.3390/land15010101 - 4 Jan 2026
Viewed by 857
Abstract
The loss of urban nature and declining biodiversity pose significant challenges to the sustainability of cities and the well-being of their inhabitants. Existing initiatives such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) have begun to address ecological risks in real estate, but [...] Read more.
The loss of urban nature and declining biodiversity pose significant challenges to the sustainability of cities and the well-being of their inhabitants. Existing initiatives such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) have begun to address ecological risks in real estate, but they still address mental health, biodiversity, and social equity only partially as non-financial values. This article adopts an integrative review and conceptual framework approach. It develops a nature-based accounting framework for urban real estate that combines principles of traditional Chinese architecture with contemporary sustainability metrics. The study reviews ecological theory, nature-related accounting, and evidence on biodiversity and mental health, and then undertakes an operational mapping from classical site planning, courtyard design, water management, and community structures to measurable indicators that remain compatible with TNFD-aligned reporting. The framework groups indicators into three main domains: nature-related conditions, ecosystem service pathways, and human well-being outcomes. It also outlines simple procedures for normalising and combining these indicators at the project scale to support assessments of biodiversity, microclimate, mental health, and basic aspects of cost-effectiveness and social accessibility in urban real estate projects. The paper provides a structured, heritage-informed basis for future applications and empirical testing, helping to incorporate biodiversity, mental health, and equity into urban real estate assessment. Full article
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