Geodiversity, Land Use and Ecosystem Services: Integrating Abiotic and Biotic Perspectives of Regional Development with Methodological Advances
A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land Use, Impact Assessment and Sustainability".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2025 | Viewed by 429
Special Issue Editors
Interests: soil geography; hydrogeography; phytogeography; sustainable agriculture; regional geography
Interests: geomorphology; geodiversity; geoheritage; geomorphological mapping; morphotectonics
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The effects of the physical development of landscape and human activities have a great influence on landscape physiognomy and consequent spatial processes (e.g., flooding, land use, conservation).
Geodiversity, the diversity of geologic, geomorphologic, hydrologic, pedologic, and topographical characteristics, influences all processes that occur. It also enables or limits the possibilities of the human use of a specific area. It is increasingly included in land management discourses and included in a variety of conservation strategies. It affects biodiversity and development, regardless of the scale.
This Special Issue of Land is dedicated to advancing our understanding of geodiversity’s multi-layered influence on human development and ecosystem services, elaborating on comprehensive insights that connect abiotic and biotic processes in the areas of pedo- and morphogenesis and land management. Our goal is to spotlight how geodiversity and geodiversification affect and enhance resilience in different landscapes and diverse settings (scale-wise or morphology wise), informing sustainable land use strategies that balance ecological integrity with human needs.
Contributions should explore interactions between abiotic and biotic systems, the modes by which they are mapped and evaluated, or offer insights into sustainable land management practices that optimize both biodiversity and ecosystem functionality, in addition to promoting geoheritage and the prevention of geodiversity loss (e.g., by mining or construction activities).
We welcome a broad range of contributions, including original research, reviews, and case studies, that provide multi-dimensional views on the following themes:
- The Foundations and Optimisation of Ecosystem Services: how geodiversity and geosystem services contribute to soil health, water management, nutrient cycles, or human activities;
- Geodiversity in Land Use and Conservation Planning: approaches that use geodiversity as a framework for sustainable land management, biodiversity conservation, and environmental planning;
- Impacts of Land Use Change: exploring how agricultural practices, urbanisation, and other human activities interact with geobiodiversity to influence ecosystem stability and resilience;
- Abiotic–Biotic Interactions: case studies that reveal how geodiversity sustains biodiversity and productivity in agroecosystems, forests, and urban landscapes;
- Policy and Practical Applications: strategies for embedding geodiversity considerations into land use policies, conservation programs, and sustainable development initiatives alongside the existing biodiversity policies;
- Methodological Advances in Diversity Evaluation: suggesting innovative methods for measuring and evaluating biodiversity, geodiversity, or land use from the various aspects of the geosphere.
We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.
Dr. Ana Vovk
Dr. Laura Melelli
Dr. Borut Stojilković
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.
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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.
Keywords
- geodiversity
- ecosystem services
- geosystem services
- abiotic-biotic interactions
- sustainable land management
- biodiversity and resilience
- geoconservation
- diversity evaluation techniques
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