Sustainable Landscape Management: Geoinformatics on the Conservation of Cultural Heritage

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Sustainability invites original research and review articles that explore the integration of geoinformatics into sustainable landscape management to preserve cultural heritage. The aim is to advance innovative approaches that leverage geospatial technologies, including GIS, remote sensing, UAVs, spatial modeling, and digital twins, to monitor, protect, and manage cultural landscapes under pressure from urbanization, climate change, tourism, and land-use transformations. The scope includes methodologies for mapping and assessing cultural ecosystems, predictive risk-management tools, participatory planning, policy frameworks, and interdisciplinary practices that bridge environmental, social, and cultural dimensions. Contributions focusing on case studies, novel geospatial tools, data-driven decision support systems, and community-based heritage conservation are particularly encouraged. This Special Issue seeks to foster dialog among researchers, planners, policymakers, and heritage practitioners to promote resilient and sustainable cultural landscapes.

The aim of this Special Issue, “Sustainable Landscape Management: Geoinformatics on the Conservation of Cultural Heritage”, is to provide a platform for innovative research that integrates geospatial technologies with sustainable strategies to safeguard cultural landscapes and heritage. This topic fits squarely within the scope of Sustainability, as it bridges technical, environmental, cultural, and social fields to address sustainability challenges. By leveraging tools like GIS, remote sensing, spatial modeling, and digital mapping, the Special Issue seeks to enhance our understanding of how cultural heritage can be preserved amid climate change, urban expansion, tourism pressures, and land-use changes. It aligns with the journal’s mission to support the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by promoting responsible stewardship of cultural and natural resources, fostering community resilience, and ensuring intergenerational equity. The subject encourages interdisciplinary contributions spanning the natural and applied sciences, engineering, the social sciences, and the humanities, reflecting the journal’s cross-disciplinary nature. It invites detailed methodological and experimental research, case studies, policy evaluations, and innovative practices that can support decision-making and impact assessments. Furthermore, it promotes open access, data sharing, and reproducibility, in line with the journal’s values, and invites submissions that will contribute to global scientific understanding and sustainable development.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include, but are not limited to, the following: geospatial technologies for cultural heritage mapping and monitoring, GIS- and remote-sensing-based landscape change detection, spatial risk assessment for climate- and human-induced threats to heritage sites, digital twins and 3D modeling for heritage visualization and preservation, the integration of UAVs and AI-driven geodata for heritage conservation, participatory geoinformatics and community-based heritage management, policy frameworks and governance models for sustainable landscape planning, and ecological–cultural interactions in heritage landscapes. Submissions may include case studies, methodological advancements, data-driven decision support systems, reviews, conceptual papers, technical communications, and short notes on emerging tools or research ideas. Contributions demonstrating interdisciplinary approaches combining environmental science, engineering, social sciences, and humanities are particularly encouraged.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Ernesto Marcheggiani
Dr. MD Abdul Mueed Choudhury
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. Sustainability 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 2400 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.

Publisher’s Notice

The Special Issue has been removed from Section Tourism, Culture, and Heritage on 7 January 2026. At the time of the move, there were no publications in this Special Issue.

• cultural heritage conservation
• sustainable landscape management
• geoinformatics
• GIS
• remote sensing
• spatial analysis
• heritage risk assessment
• cultural landscapes
• digital heritage
• participatory planning