Special Issue "Green Infrastructure and Resilient Stream Ecosystems"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Social Ecology and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Sang-Woo Lee
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Forestry and Landscape Architecture, Konkuk University, Seoul 05029, Korea
Interests: landscape ecological planning & design; spatial analysis; GIS; remote sensing; stream restoration; watershed management
Dr. Christopher D. Ellis
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Landscape Architecture Program, The University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Interests: landscape performance; sustainable development; landscape ecology; spatial analysis; environmental perception; information technology for landscape planning and design

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Stream ecosystems across the world have been under increasing pressure of impairment of structure and function due to climate change, frequent extreme weather events (droughts and flooding), human disturbances, intensified land uses, and land transformations in watersheds and riparian areas at various spatiotemporal scales. To sustain the structure and function of stream ecosystems, enhancing the resilience of stream ecosystems is essential in stream management and restoration. One of promising approaches to enhance the resilience of stream ecosystems can be integrating green infrastructure with stream corridors in human occupied areas. This Special Issue highlights the relationships between green infrastructure and resilient stream ecosystems. We invite papers from a range of topics dealing with integrating green infrastructure and stream ecosystems.       

Topics may include:

  • Roles of structure and function of riparian vegetation on stream ecosystems
  • Biological assessment of stream ecosystems
  • Index for green infrastructure
  • Index to measure the resilience of stream ecosystems
  • Relationships between green infrastructure and stream ecosystems at various spatiotemporal scales
  • Stream management and restoration for enhancing resilience of stream ecosystems
  • Roles of social-cultural aspects (e.g., policy, perception, history, education) on the relationship between green infrastructure and stream ecosystems
  • Relationships between watershed vegetation land cover and stream water quality

Papers addressing conceptual or empirical strategies, and methods dealing with the way to integrate green infrastructure and resilient stream ecosystems are particularly welcome. The overall aim of this Special Issue is to advance our knowledge of how green infrastructure can be utilized in enhancing the resilience of steam ecosystems to respond to various increasing stressors.

Prof. Dr. Sang-Woo Lee
Dr. Christopher D. Ellis
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 papers will be 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. 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 1900 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

  • stream resilience
  • stream restoration
  • green infrastructure
  • vegetation cover
  • riparian vegetation
  • aquatic ecosystems

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Article
Socioeconomic Risks and Their Impacts on Ecological River Health in South Korea: An Application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process
Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 6287; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116287 - 02 Jun 2021
Viewed by 547
Abstract
It is imperative to develop a methodology to identify river impairment sources, particularly the relative impact of socioeconomic sources, to enhance the efficiency of various river restoration schemes and policies and to have an internal diagnosis system in place. This study, therefore, aims [...] Read more.
It is imperative to develop a methodology to identify river impairment sources, particularly the relative impact of socioeconomic sources, to enhance the efficiency of various river restoration schemes and policies and to have an internal diagnosis system in place. This study, therefore, aims to identify and analyze the relative importance of the socioeconomic factors affecting river ecosystem impairment in South Korea. To achieve this goal, we applied the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate expert judgement of the relative importance of different socioeconomic factors influencing river ecosystem impairment. Based on a list of socioeconomic factors influencing stream health, an AHP questionnaire was prepared and administered to experts in aquatic ecology. Our analysis reveals that secondary industries form the most significant source of stream ecosystem impairment. Moreover, the most critical socioeconomic factors affecting stream impairment are direct inflow pollution, policy implementation, and industrial wastewater. The results also suggest that the AHP is a rapid and robust approach to assessing the relative importance of different socioeconomic factors that affect river ecosystem health. The results can be used to assist decision makers in focusing on actions to improve river ecosystem health. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Infrastructure and Resilient Stream Ecosystems)
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Article
Identifying Key Watershed Characteristics That Affect the Biological Integrity of Streams in the Han River Watershed, Korea
Sustainability 2021, 13(6), 3359; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063359 - 18 Mar 2021
Viewed by 386
Abstract
Understanding the complex human and natural processes that occur in watersheds and stream ecosystems is critical for decision makers and planners to ensure healthy stream ecosystems. This study aims to characterize the Han River watershed in Korea and extract key relationships among watershed [...] Read more.
Understanding the complex human and natural processes that occur in watersheds and stream ecosystems is critical for decision makers and planners to ensure healthy stream ecosystems. This study aims to characterize the Han River watershed in Korea and extract key relationships among watershed attributes and biological indicators of streams using principal component analysis (PCA) and self-organizing maps (SOM). This study integrated watershed attributes and biological indicators of streams to delineate the watershed and stream biological status. Results from PCA strongly suggested that the proportions of watershed and riparian land use are key factors that explain the total variance in the datasets. Forest land in the watershed appeared to be the most significant factor. Furthermore, SOM planes showed that the biological indicators of streams have strong positive relationships with forest land, well-drained soil, and slope, whereas they have inverse relationships with urban areas, agricultural areas, and poorly drained soil. Hierarchical clustering classified the watersheds into three clusters, exclusively located in the study areas depending on the degree of forest, urban, and agricultural areas. The findings of this study suggest that different management strategies should be established depending on the characteristics of a cluster to improve the biological condition of streams. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Infrastructure and Resilient Stream Ecosystems)
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