Defining and Assessing Landscape and Urban Sustainability: Linking Spatial Patterns, Ecosystems Services, and Human Wellbeing

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability is the theme of our time, and must be achieved on local, regional, and global scales for the persistence and prosperity of humanity. But local scales are frequently too small to adequately consider key environmental, economic, and social processes, while the global scale is often too large to conduct mechanistic studies that link biodiversity, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, socioeconomic processes, institutional dynamics, and human wellbeing, which is required to produce actionable science and policy-relevant knowledge. Therefore, landscapes and regions represent a pivotal scale domain for developing the science and promoting the practice of sustainability.

This Special Issue aims to help advance the science and practice of sustainability on landscape and regional scales—including large natural areas, agricultural/grazing landscapes, urban landscapes, metropolitan regions, and coupled human–environment systems in different sociocultural settings around the world. Three kinds of papers will be included in this Special Issue: (1) Theory and principles of landscape sustainability, urban sustainability, and regional sustainability, which link spatial patterns, ecosystems services, and human wellbeing; (2) Indicator- and model-based assessment of sustainability on landscape and regional scales; and (3) Design and planning studies that can guide sustainability policy-making and practices on the ground. Papers that integrate two of the three aspects or all of them are particularly welcome. To ensure the quality and impact of the Special Issue, each and every manuscript must show an adequate awareness of the primary literature on sustainability science, landscape sustainability, and urban sustainability, and discuss specific case studies in a broader sustainability context. Also, each manuscript will be peer-reviewed rigorously by at least two established scientists in relevant fields.

Prof. Dr. Jianguo (Jingle) Wu
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 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-anonymized 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.