Special Issue "Ecosystem Function and Land Use Change"
A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2014) | Viewed by 79594
Special Issue Editor

Interests: landscape ecology; biodiversity conservation; sustainability science; environmental policy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Land use is quickly emerging as a top issue in many scientific fields, including those of climate change, biodiversity conservation, bioenergy, and sustainable development. An expanding human footprint is driving the loss of natural forests, savannas, and wetlands in favor of agricultural, industrial, and urban land uses. These land use conversions significantly impact ecological systems (often on multiple scales). Indeed, regional and global teleconnections among ecosystems, which are connected by the climate system, are becoming readily apparent because land use change affects increasingly distant areas. Land use affects many of the ecosystem functions that human societies rely upon, including climate regulation (carbon sequestration), nutrient cycling, biomass productivity, water purification, and pollination (to name a few).
This Special Issue invites articles that illustrate the connections between land use change and ecosystem functioning at a variety of scales. Articles may focus on the connections or feedbacks between human and natural systems that occur through land use, the impacts on specific ecosystem functions by land use change, or conversely, how human communities are impacted by the loss of ecological functions due to land use change. Theoretical, empirical, and modeling approaches are all welcome.
Dr. Audrey L. Mayer
Guest Editor
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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 2200 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 change science
- ecosystem functions
- scale
- teleconnections
- human dimensions