Plants in Built-Up Areas

Dear Colleagues,

Plants are an extremely important element of green infrastructure, understood as a network of natural and semi-natural green areas, located in urban and non-urban spaces, which are intended to improve the functioning of ecosystems, thus contributing to biodiversity protection. Additionally, plants not only enrich the surroundings of engineering structures, but they also constitute an important part of them, as may be seen in the example of green roofs and walls. However, urbanization transforms all the environmental elements—properties of lightness, air humidity and temperature—and causes changes in the physical and chemical properties of soils. The changes in the environment create new conditions which influence plants at all levels of organization—from single cells to entire communities. These changes may make urban areas more habitable for some species, but less habitable for others. Plants have developed many strategies which help them to survive under different environment conditions, but the urban environment changes itself very quickly and more and more species are being exposed to extreme phenomena.

The scope of this issue will include publications about the functioning of single plant organisms (morphology, physiology) as well as whole plant communities in areas transformed by humans: urban environment and urban green spaces, but also paved surfaces (green belts near the roads, green roofs, parking lots).

With this Special Issue, we seek to generate innovative insights into: (i) the factors which allow some plant species or communities to adapt to changing environments in built-up areas, and (ii) widening the knowledge about the functions performed by plants in such areas. We will consider papers that examine the mechanisms of plant resistance, as well as possibilities of improvement in environmental conditions, such as phytoremediation or air and water quality improvement.

This Special Issue welcomes all types of papers (research papers, methodical papers and reviews).

Dr. Piotr Dabrowski
Dr. Aneta Helena Baczewska-Dąbrowska
Dr. Tomasz Gnatowski
Dr. Marcin J. Małuszyński
Dr. Grażyna Mastalerczuk
Dr. Bogumiła Pawluśkiewicz
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 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. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2700 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.

• green infrastructure
• green roofs and walls
• urban soils
• plant stresses caused by the human activity
• xerization of the urban environment
• urban renewal