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Green Infrastructure Planning and Governance for Sustainable Urban Development and...
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Green Infrastructure Planning and Governance for Sustainable Urban Development and Quality of Life—Second Edition

A Special Issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X) belonging to the section "Urban Contexts and Urban-Rural Interactions".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 2263

Editors

Prof. Dr. Xinhao Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Planning, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA
Interests: environmental planning; spatial analysis; resilience; geographic information system
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Xin Fu

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
College of Landscape Architecture and Arts, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang 712100, China
Interests: urban resilience; green infrastructure; stormwater management; planning support system
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Chen Shen

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Interests: stormwater management; urban drainage system
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

We are pleased to announce this Special Issue of Land, entitled “Green Infrastructure Planning and Governance for Sustainable Urban Development and Quality of Life—Second Edition”, which is a development of a previous Special Issue on “Green Infrastructure Planning and Management for Sustainable Urban Development and Quality of Life” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/special_issues/52QK913YZ0).

Green infrastructure (GI), encompassing a range of nature-based solutions, has emerged as a pivotal approach to address the multifaceted challenges posed by urbanization and climate change. GI can effectively enhance air quality, manage stormwater, and increase biodiversity, thereby promoting a healthier urban ecosystem. GI has been linked to quality of life in urban settings such as improved mental well-being and refined landscape aesthetics. As urban areas confront future uncertainties such as climate change, population growth, and socio-economic shifts, GI provides a critical pathway to reduce environmental risks and strengthen social cohesion and community engagement.

In this Special Issue, we will collect papers (original research articles and review papers) that give insights into the contribution of green infrastructure to sustainable urbanization.

This Special Issue will also contribute to the discourse on green infrastructure planning and governance by providing a platform for innovative research and practical solutions that inform policy and practice. In particular, it will focus on how the spatial distribution of GI, through its interaction with the built environment, can transform urban landscapes into healthier, more resilient settings capable of adapting to future uncertainties.

We welcome the submission of manuscripts to this Special Issue related to one or more of the following themes:

  • Innovative design and implementation of green infrastructure;
  • Spatial distribution and accessibility of green infrastructure;
  • Policy frameworks, assessment systems, and governance for green infrastructure planning and maintenance;
  • Methods to promote community engagement and public participation in green infrastructure planning and governance;
  • Climate change mitigation and adaptation through green infrastructure;
  • Research and case studies on green-infrastructure-dominated urban resilience planning and governance;
  • Implementation of green infrastructure in sustainable urban development.

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

Prof. Dr. Xinhao Wang
Dr. Xin Fu
Dr. Chen Shen
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-anonymized 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

  • green infrastructure
  • planning and governance
  • sustainable development
  • urban resilience
  • climate change
  • quality of life

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

35 pages, 3531 KB  
Article
Institutional Isomorphism and Strategic Response: Evolution Mechanism of Urban Green Infrastructure Labels in the Yangtze River Delta Region from 2005 to 2025
by Yuan Yuan, Zhangying Wu, Jiale Sun, Danyang Wang and Qi Fu
Land 2026, 15(9), 1556; https://doi.org/10.3390/land15091556 - 25 Aug 2026
Viewed by 178
Abstract
This study examines urban green infrastructure (UGI) branding as a governance practice shaped by institutional homogenization and strategic responses within China’s multi-level policy framework. Against the backdrop of global sustainability agendas, UGI branding is conceptualized as a policy-oriented, symbolically embedded instrument for communicating [...] Read more.
This study examines urban green infrastructure (UGI) branding as a governance practice shaped by institutional homogenization and strategic responses within China’s multi-level policy framework. Against the backdrop of global sustainability agendas, UGI branding is conceptualized as a policy-oriented, symbolically embedded instrument for communicating cities’ commitments to green development and climate resilience. Using an institutional “identity–label–image” framework, integrated with policy diffusion theory and multi-center regional development models, we systematically analyze historical brand-label data from 27 core cities in the Yangtze River Delta. Our findings reveal three key patterns: (1) brand diffusion follows dual pathways of mandatory and imitative homogenization, with evolutionary rhythms tied to five-year planning cycles, generating discernible “policy waves”; (2) within polycentric regional structures, core cities act as institutional “interpreters” and benchmarks, while peripheral cities pursue imitation-driven differentiation, reflecting complex dynamics of collaboration and competition; and (3) urban identities expressed through brand labels progressively align with substantive sustainability transitions, aiming to enhance regional competitiveness and upward recognition. We conclude that UGI branding constitutes a deep-seated mechanism of sustainable urban governance, offering a novel theoretical lens on China’s institutional logic of city branding and providing actionable insights for optimizing collaborative brand governance and integrated green infrastructure planning in urban agglomerations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Infrastructure Planning and Governance for Sustainable Urban Development and Quality of Life—Second Edition)
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24 pages, 45591 KB  
Article
Differences in the Mechanisms Influencing the Urban Heat Island Effect Between Representative Southern and Northern Chinese Cities: A Case Study of Wuhan and Xi’an
by Zhaowei Tang, Guanchen Liu, Yueying Zhang, Zhaoyang Yan, Jiarui Li and Xin Fu
Land 2026, 15(7), 1188; https://doi.org/10.3390/land15071188 - 1 Jul 2026
Viewed by 427
Abstract
Against the backdrop of rapid urbanization and climate warming, the urban heat island (UHI) effect has severely affected ecological security and public health. Existing studies have often focused on single-city analyses or large-sample averages, with insufficient attention to the nonlinear driving mechanisms of [...] Read more.
Against the backdrop of rapid urbanization and climate warming, the urban heat island (UHI) effect has severely affected ecological security and public health. Existing studies have often focused on single-city analyses or large-sample averages, with insufficient attention to the nonlinear driving mechanisms of UHI under different hydrothermal contexts. This study selects Wuhan and Xi’an as representative cities, constructing an explainable machine learning framework to interpret and compare UHI intensity across feature importance, nonlinear responses, factor interactions, and spatial differentiation. The results show that, in Wuhan, the top five factors contribute 62.4%, reflecting a composite dominance of ecology, spatial morphology, location, and human activities. In Xi’an, the top five factors contribute 72.0%, indicating a more concentrated dominant structure. Nonlinear responses reveal that key factors like NDVI have distinct effect thresholds and mechanisms in the two cities. Spatially, Wuhan displays a continuous gradient pattern characterized by center-promoting and peripheral-suppressing effects, whereas Xi’an presents a block-like mosaic structure composed of multiple juxtaposed districts. These differences suggest that UHI mitigation should move beyond a uniform control model and instead adopt climate-sensitive strategies that account for the dominant factor combinations, response thresholds, and spatial organization of each city. The proposed framework and findings provide scientific support for understanding UHI mechanisms under different hydrothermal contexts and offer targeted implications for thermal environment regulation and spatial planning in cities with similar climatic and environmental characteristics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Infrastructure Planning and Governance for Sustainable Urban Development and Quality of Life—Second Edition)
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18 pages, 4237 KB  
Article
Spatiotemporal Evolution and Planning Optimisation of Green Infrastructure Networks in Shanghai: A Resilience-Informed Patch-Corridor-Connectivity Assessment
by Lu Feng, Ziyan Zhou and Zhiyuan Liang
Land 2026, 15(7), 1111; https://doi.org/10.3390/land15071111 - 23 Jun 2026
Viewed by 327
Abstract
Rapid urbanisation has reshaped Shanghai’s ecological land base and intensified fragmentation of its green infrastructure (GI). This study evaluates the spatiotemporal evolution of Shanghai’s GI network from 2000 to 2020 using a resilience-informed patch-corridor-connectivity assessment. In this study, resilience is not just an [...] Read more.
Rapid urbanisation has reshaped Shanghai’s ecological land base and intensified fragmentation of its green infrastructure (GI). This study evaluates the spatiotemporal evolution of Shanghai’s GI network from 2000 to 2020 using a resilience-informed patch-corridor-connectivity assessment. In this study, resilience is not just an explanatory label but a measurable structural criterion. Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA) was used to identify core patches; patch importance was evaluated using delta Probability of Connectivity (dPC); a Minimum Cumulative Resistance (MCR) model was used to derive potential corridors; and a gravity model was used to classify corridor importance. The results show that important ecological corridors increased from 22 in 2000 to 33 in 2010 and 68 in 2020, while the total area of the MSPA core class declined and north–south connectivity remained uneven. The key finding is not the growth of corridor number itself, but the mismatch between corridor densification and contraction of major source patches. This mismatch indicates a structural vulnerability that would be overlooked by a conventional network-optimisation reading. Therefore, based on the results of indicator-based resilience assessment, this study proposes a planning scheme that combines core-area conservation, corridor continuity, redundancy improvement, and cross-regional connectivity enhancement. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Infrastructure Planning and Governance for Sustainable Urban Development and Quality of Life—Second Edition)
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32 pages, 2693 KB  
Article
Assessing Public Participation Performance in China’s Sponge City and LID Projects: An Application of a Multi-Dimensional Evaluation Framework
by Mingwei Yuan and Jin-Oh Kim
Land 2026, 15(6), 921; https://doi.org/10.3390/land15060921 - 27 May 2026
Viewed by 711
Abstract
Urbanization and climate change are increasing pluvial flooding risks, thereby intensifying the need for more adaptive stormwater governance in Chinese Sponge City projects. Although public participation is widely recognized as important, current research frequently conceptualizes it as a simplified or static attribute and [...] Read more.
Urbanization and climate change are increasing pluvial flooding risks, thereby intensifying the need for more adaptive stormwater governance in Chinese Sponge City projects. Although public participation is widely recognized as important, current research frequently conceptualizes it as a simplified or static attribute and seldom provides explicit criteria for identifying representative projects in large urban portfolios. This study develops a life cycle-sensitive framework for evaluating public participation in Sponge City projects by conducting a cross-city comparison in China. The study integrates project inventory construction, evidence-based representative project selection, and a multidimensional participation measurement tool covering breadth, depth, identity, and potential across planning, design, construction, and maintenance using five national pilot cities: Jinan, Shanghai, Xiamen, Shenzhen, and Wuhan. The results show that the five representative projects display distinct life cycle participation profiles, rather than a single participation pattern, influenced by project type and governance arrangement. Maintenance emerges as the strongest documented stage, whereas design is the weakest, suggesting stronger documented governance continuity after project delivery than in front-end co-design. Recurrent weaknesses remain in substantive inclusion and feedback-adoption closure. Overall, the study frames participation as a structured governance capability, providing an auditable comparative framework for identifying participation strengths and weaknesses in Sponge City governance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Infrastructure Planning and Governance for Sustainable Urban Development and Quality of Life—Second Edition)
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