Integrating Participatory Approaches, Ecosystem Services, and Risk Perception for Sustainable Cities

Dear Colleagues,

Urban and peri-urban areas are facing increasing pressures from climate change, industrialization, population growth, and environmental hazards. Planning sustainable and resilient cities requires not only an understanding of the physical environment but also insight into how people perceive and interact with it. Risk perception, including environmental, industrial, and technological hazards, significantly influences public behavior, well-being, and acceptance of planning and policy measures.

Participatory geographic approaches, including participatory mapping and related frameworks such as Public/Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS/PGIS) and Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), have become key tools for integrating local knowledge, social values, and lived experience into spatial planning and decision making. At the same time, ecosystem services provided by green spaces offer key environmental, cultural, and regulatory benefits that promote human health, climate change adaptation, and biodiversity. By combining these perspectives, researchers and practitioners can better contribute to the design of sustainable, resilient, and inclusive urban systems.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to compile original research articles and review papers examining the links between participatory approaches, ecosystem services, and risk perceptions in urban systems and provide insights for the development of sustainable, resilient, and people-oriented cities.

This Special Issue welcomes manuscripts that address the integration of participatory approaches, ecosystem services, and risk perception in urban and peri-urban planning, covering topics including (but not limited to) the following:

• Participatory Approaches and Decision-Making: exploring how participatory approaches are combined with ecological and risk assessments to inform sustainable planning and policy.
• Ecosystem Services in Integrated Planning: examining how assessments of green infrastructure and ecosystem services are incorporated into participatory processes and risk-informed strategies for resilient urban systems.
• Risk Perception and Planning Integration: investigating how perceived environmental, industrial, or technological risks are combined with ecological and participatory data to guide planning and management decisions.
• Sustainable and Resilient Urban Development: presenting approaches that simultaneously consider social, ecological, and risk dimensions to enhance urban sustainability, well-being, and resilience.
• Ecosystem Services and Nature-Based Solutions in Integrated Planning: Examining how assessments of green infrastructure, nature-based solutions (NBSs), and ecosystem services are incorporated into participatory planning processes and risk-informed strategies for resilient urban and peri-urban systems, particularly in post-industrial and transitioning regions.
• Landscape Perception, Place-Based Knowledge, and Environmental Justice: Addressing how landscape perception, lived experience, and local knowledge influence attitudes toward environmental risks, ecosystem services, and planning interventions and how these dimensions can be meaningfully integrated into participatory planning and design.
• Sustainable and Resilient Urban Development in Post-Industrial Contexts: Presenting planning approaches that simultaneously consider social equity, ecological performance, and risk exposure to enhance urban sustainability, environmental justice, well-being, and resilience in post-industrial and industrially influenced urban areas.
• Comparative and International Perspectives on Integrated Planning: Offering comparative case studies across regions, countries, or planning systems that highlight similarities and differences in participatory practices, ecosystem service integration, and risk perception, including Global North–South and cross-cultural perspectives.
• Methodological and Analytical Innovations: highlighting case studies, geospatial tools, modeling techniques, and analytical frameworks that integrate participatory, ecological, and risk-based perspectives for urban systems.

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

Dr. Mahdi Gheitasi
Dr. Daniel Jato-Espino
Dr. Azadeh Shahrad
Dr. Mais Jafari
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.

• participatory approaches
• risk perception
• ecosystem services
• urban planning
• sustainability
• sustainable cities
• green infrastructure
• environmental hazards
• social-ecological systems
• urban resilience
• urban transformation
• nature-based solutions (NBS)
• co-creation of green space
• co-creation of green space
• planning governance