Ecosystem-Based Regional Planning

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you and your colleagues to contribute to this Special Issue of Land on “Ecosystem-based Regional Planning”.

Holistic ecosystem-based studies and management have evolved from recognizing that sectoral and species-based approaches lead to conflicts between sectors and collateral negative human and ecological impacts. Whole-of-system and ecosystem-based approaches underpin the long-term goal of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and implementation of its Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). A priority initial goal of GBF is to ensure integrated threat management of all land and sea areas, founded on ecologically based spatial plans that transition improvements to impacted areas whilst protecting and enhancing existing natural areas. Within this spirit, this Special Issue is devoted to advancing our understanding and management capabilities of complex regional ecological systems across marine, coastal, and terrestrial domains.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

We invite contributions that address the structure, scale-dependence, human–ecosystem linkages, and drivers, including climate change, across the domains, and across ecosystem components such as species, functional communities, habitats, and processes. As an example, a recent global study of nutrient inputs into the ocean identifies meat production and consumption in certain regions contributing disproportionately to ocean eutrophication, climate change, and pollution, with implications that the partial replacement of meat with vegetables can provide sustained benefits to the environment and humans. Therefore, the key themes of this Special Issue on “Ecosystem-based Regional Planning” are identifying linkages, dependencies, and feedbacks operating across land and sea domains, across nested structures of regional human systems and ecosystems, and across components within ecosystems. We encourage contributors to include case studies, or reviews of case studies, that highlight linkages and dependencies at regional scales.

Dr. Vincent Lyne
Prof. Dr. Fenzhen Su
Dr. Fengqin Yan
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.