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The Mechanism of Land-Water Interaction and Management Strategies: Recent Discoveries and the Way Forward

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A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land Systems and Global Change".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2026 | Viewed by 3941

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Carla Rolo Antunes

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of the Algarve, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal
Interests: water resources; land use planning; green infrastructure; nature-based solutions; soil and water bioengineering; erosion; natural hazard and risk mitigation; environmental impact assessment; strategic environmental assessment
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Prof. Dr. Shiliang Liu

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Guest Editor

State Key Laboratory of Regional Environment and Sustainability, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Interests: landscape ecology; restoration ecology; ecosystem service; spatial modelling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over recent years, the number of activities, policies, and studies has multiplied, and an increasing amount of research has produced evidence about the influences of land-use change in hydrological processes. Although this is a research area that has been around for some time, in the actual scenario of climate change it has become urgent and imperative to define the way forward.

Global changes in land use, especially urbanization with vegetation removal, soil sealing, and deforestation, are acknowledged as being able to significantly modify rainfall partitioning into surface runoff and groundwater recharge, altering water cycle processes and increasing the vulnerability of the system.

Currently, issues and risks associated with land-use change represent a challenge to hydrological processes, posing multiple pressures for components of the hydrological cycle at the watershed scale, to which science needs to respond.

Other studies have revealed a complex relationship between land use and hydrological processes. This being the case, models and GIS tools have been used to discuss the influence of land-use changes in these processes, namely on runoff mechanisms and infiltration coefficients, which have been essential.

The aim of this Special Issue is to investigate the response of hydrological processes to land-use change and the way forward, which can help managers coordinate the relationship between this change and water resource planning.

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

Dr. Carla Rolo Antunes
Prof. Dr. Shiliang Liu
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.

Keywords

land use change
hydrological processes
models
hydrological variables
runoff
infiltration

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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18 pages, 2736 KB

Open AccessArticle

Study on Spatial Pattern Changes and Driving Factors of Land Use/Cover in Coastal Areas of Eastern China from 2000 to 2022: A Case Study of Jiangsu Province

by Mingli Zhang, Letian Ning, Juanling Li and Yanhua Wang

Land 2025, 14(10), 2031; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14102031 - 11 Oct 2025

Viewed by 518

Abstract

Jiangsu Province is an important economic province on the eastern coast of China, revealing the spatial–temporal characteristics, dynamic degree, and transition direction of land use/cover change, and its main driving factors are significant for the effective use of land resources and the promotion of regional human–land coordinated development. Based on land use data of Jiangsu Province from 2000 to 2020, this study investigates the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of land use/cover using the dynamics model and the transfer matrix model, and examines the influence and interaction of the driving factors between human activities and the natural environment based on 10-factor data using Geodetector. The results showed that (1) In the past 20 years, the type of land use/cover in Jiangsu Province primarily comprises cropland, water, and impervious, with the land use/cover change mode mainly consisting of a dramatic change in cropland and impervious and relatively little change in forest, grassland, water, and barren. (2) From the perspective of the dynamic rate of land use/cover change, the single land use dynamic degree showed that impervious is the only land type whose dynamics have positively increased from 2000 to 2010 and 2010 to 2020, with values of 3.67% and 3.03%, respectively. According to the classification of comprehensive motivation, the comprehensive land use motivation in Jiangsu Province in each time period from 2000 to 2010 and 2010 to 2020 is 0.46% and 0.43%, respectively, which belongs to the extremely slow change type. (3) From the perspective of land use/cover transfer, Jiangsu Province is mainly characterized by a large area of cropland transfer (−7954.30 km²) and a large area of impervious transfer (8759.58 km²). The increase in impervious is mainly attributed to the transformation of cropland and water, accounting for 4066.07 km² and 513.73 km² from 2010 to 2020, which indicates that the non-agricultural phenomenon of cropland in Jiangsu Province, i.e., the process of transforming cropland into non-agricultural construction land, is significant. (4) From the perspective of driving factors, population density (q = 0.154) and night light brightness (q = 0.156) have always been important drivers of land use/cover change in Jiangsu Province. The interaction detection indicates that the land use/cover change is driven by both socio-economic factors and natural geographic factors. (5) In response to the dual pressures of climate change and rapid urbanization, coordinating the multiple objectives of socio-economic development, food security, and ecological protection is the fundamental path to achieving sustainable land use in Jiangsu Province and similar developed coastal areas. By revealing the characteristics and driving factors of land use/cover change in Jiangsu Province, this study provides qualitative and quantitative theoretical support for the coordinated decision-making of economic development and land use planning in Jiangsu Province, specifically contributing to sustainable land planning, climate adaptation policy-making, and the enhancement of community well-being through optimized land use. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Mechanism of Land-Water Interaction and Management Strategies: Recent Discoveries and the Way Forward)

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15 pages, 2959 KB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

How Land Use and Hydrological Characteristics Impact Stream Conditions in Impaired Ecosystems

by Se-Rin Park, Yujin Park, Jong-Won Lee, Hyunji Kim, Kyung-A You and Sang-Woo Lee

Land 2025, 14(4), 829; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14040829 - 10 Apr 2025

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1029

Abstract

Anthropogenic influence has altered watershed environments and hydrological processes, leading to increased occurrences of impaired streams and negative impacts on benthic invertebrates. While individual environmental factors affecting benthic macroinvertebrates have been studied, the cascading effects of land use change and hydrological alterations remain unclear. This study employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the interactions among land use proportion, hydrological characteristics, substrate composition, and water quality and their influence on benthic macroinvertebrate communities in impaired streams upstream of the Paldang Dam in the Han River Basin, South Korea. Analysis of data from 24 streams surveyed between 2018 and 2022—3 or 6 streams per year—under the Impaired Stream Diagnosis Program indicated that urban and agricultural land cover, low substrate diversity, high pollutant concentrations, and altered flow conditions (low velocity and discharge) were associated with decreased pollution-sensitive Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) taxa and increased pollution-tolerant and collector–gatherer taxa. These findings highlight the role of land use-driven hydrological changes in stream ecosystem degradation and underscore the need for targeted restoration strategies, such as riparian buffer zones, substrate enhancement, and hydrological flow restoration, to mitigate these impacts and improve benthic macroinvertebrate habitats. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Mechanism of Land-Water Interaction and Management Strategies: Recent Discoveries and the Way Forward)

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20 pages, 11337 KB

Open AccessArticle

Ecological Waves at Tourist Attractions on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Promote Greenness of Surrounding Vegetation

by Zitao Yang and Li Tian

Land 2025, 14(1), 159; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14010159 - 14 Jan 2025

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1205 | Correction

Abstract

The unique tourism resources of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have created conditions for the development of ecotourism, while the existence of attractions may also have positive and negative impacts on the surrounding environment. This study defines the radiation waves that generate ecological effects as “ecological waves”, quantifies the ecological waves of attractions by buffer zone analysis of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) within 20 km of 38 4A and 5A attractions on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in 2020, and elaborately explores the ecological effects of attractions on the surrounding environment. By combining the principle of ripple effects, it analyzes the impact of urban attractions on urban vegetation environments. The study found that attractions on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have a positive ecological effect on the surrounding vegetation, the positive ecological effect of suburban attractions has a distance threshold, effectively promoting vegetation greenness within a range of 6–14 km, and the ecological effect disappears beyond 14 km. In addition, applying the ripple effect model to urban attractions and city centers (Xining and Lhasa), the results indicated that among the five urban attractions in Xining, Kumbum Monastery, Qinghai Tibetan Culture Center, and Country Farming Ecological Park (with distance restrictions of 2–20 km) have significant positive ecological effects within the built-up area, while the ecological effects of Qinghai Province Museum and Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Safari Park are not significant. The positive ecological effects of the five urban attractions in Lhasa within the built-up area are not significant, and different attractions have different distance thresholds for ecological effects. Furthermore, this study found that attractions in Qinghai have a better ecological foundation around them than attractions in Tibet, making them more suitable for the development of ecotourism. This study has opened up a new perspective on the ecological effects of attractions and provided scientific references for the development of ecological tourism in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Mechanism of Land-Water Interaction and Management Strategies: Recent Discoveries and the Way Forward)

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