Urban Green Spaces for Climate Change Mitigation and Resilient Cities

Dear Colleagues,

Urban green spaces are central to global efforts to mitigate climate change and strengthen urban resilience, and their contributions extend from their ecological functions—such as reducing the urban heat island effect, managing stormwater, and improving air quality—to the social benefits they provide, enhancing health, well-being, recreation, and community cohesion. While traditional forms of green infrastructure include parks, gardens, and street trees, contemporary approaches increasingly embrace innovative solutions such as vertical forests, green façades, and green roofs—emerging forms of urban vegetation that carry significant implications for building design, construction practices, and structural performance, underscoring the need for interdisciplinary research and innovation. Collectively, such strategies advance the vision of sustainable, inclusive, and climate-adaptive cities.

This call for contributions seeks to expand scientific knowledge on the role of urban vegetation in shaping resilient urban environments, and we particularly welcome manuscripts that provide innovative technological developments, case studies, policy analyses, comprehensive reviews, and cross-disciplinary assessments that engage with the benefits, governance, and challenges of green spaces in cities and buildings. By bringing together diverse perspectives, this topic aims to inform urban sustainability agendas and foster integrated approaches to greening contemporary cities.

We invites contributions that advance the understanding of urban green spaces as elements of infrastructure that is critical for climate change mitigation and resilience-building, and we particularly welcome interdisciplinary research, technological innovations, case studies, policy analyses, and comprehensive reviews that address the following topics:

• The role of green infrastructure in mitigating urban heat, improving air quality, and managing stormwater.
• Innovative urban greening strategies—including vertical forests, green roofs, and vegetated façades—and their constructional and structural implications for building renovation and urban regeneration, with particular attention to the mitigation of structural vibrations induced by seismic activity, wind loads, and other dynamic forces.
• Social and health benefits of urban green spaces, encompassing well-being, recreation, and the strengthening of community cohesion.
• Green mobility corridors and their role in promoting sustainable and low-carbon urban transport systems.
• Governance, planning, and equity challenges in the design, distribution, and long-term maintenance of urban green infrastructure.
• Integration of green spaces into broader frameworks for urban sustainability, climate adaptation, and resilience.

Dr. Dimitra Tsirigoti
Dr. Stylianos Pardalopoulos
Dr. Theodoros Rousakis
Dr. Athina Kantzioura
Prof. Dr. Aleksandra M. Djukić
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 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.

• urban green spaces
• climate change mitigation
• urban resilience
• sustainable cities
• urban green roofs
• green facades
• urban forests
• dynamic response of vegetated architectural attachments