Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, developing countries have experienced a widespread population increase. On one hand, this has resulted in a disorganized urban expansion, problems with fast land-use change and the related threats to natural resources. On the other hand, the increase of the population and the progressive urban expansion have caused the conversion of agricultural areas into urban spaces.

In general, this land-use change between urban and rural produces serious problems, especially related to lack of food supply and increased demand for infrastructure and basic services. These problems are more prominent in poor and developing countries, but they also represent a challenge for developed ones, where wellbeing is also affected. 

These issues related to non-urban and urban interactions need to be analyzed in different ways, and they should be considered an opportunity to find practical and sustainable solutions, where academic research must be linked with governments and their regulatory statements to achieve the goal of sustainable development. In this Special Issue, we welcome studies related to land-use change and non-urban and urban relationships at all spatiotemporal scales. This includes: 

• Land-use planning schemes to progressive urban expansion;
• Regulatory strategies;
• Planning for a sustainable future;
• Geospatial-based decision support systems (DSS);
• Spatiotemporal dynamics, socioeconomic implication, water supply problems and deforestation land degradation (e.g., increase of imperviousness surfaces) produced by urban expansion and their resource requirements. Studies including the exploitation of low/high-level remote sensing imageries are also welcomed.

Dr. Víctor Hugo González-Jaramillo
Dr. Antonio Novelli
Guest Editors

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