Special Issue "Impacts of Human Activities on Natural Vegetation Conservation in the Protected Areas"

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Adriano Stinca
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Environmental, Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Caserta, 81100, Italy
Interests: floristics; plant taxonomy; vegetation science; community ecology; plant biology; biogeography; fire ecology; biodeteriogenic plants on monuments and archaeological sites; plant biodiversity assessment and conservation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Protected areas are clearly defined geographical spaces, recognized and managed to achieve the long-term conservation of nature, ecosystem services, and cultural values. They include some 13% of the global land surface and 1.5% of the oceans and represent the most important sites for biodiversity conservation. Although natural vegetation plays an important role in the conservation of the entire ecosystem and all its components (plants, animals, soil, etc.), anthropogenic activities that can alter its balances are in sharp increase also in protected areas.

This Special Issue will focus on new interdisciplinary research and significant advances in the evaluation of impacts of human activities on natural vegetation conservation in protected areas. Authors are encouraged to submit their manuscripts on the following topics:

1) Impacts on vegetation due to climate changes;

2) Impacts on vegetation due to exotic species (e.g., plants, insects, mammals);

3) Impacts on vegetation due to silvicultural management;

4) Impacts on vegetation due to wildfire;

5) Impacts on vegetation due to alteration of the soils water regime;

6) Impacts on vegetation due to tourism and agriculture;

7) Impacts on vegetation due to air, water, and soil pollutants;

8) Impacts on vegetation due to urbanization;

9) Economic evaluation of impacts on vegetation;

10) Proposals to mitigate the impacts on vegetation and improve the environmental sustainability.

Dr. Adriano Stinca
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 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

  • protected areas
  • natural vegetation
  • anthropogenic impacts
  • ecological impacts
  • vegetation degradation
  • nature conservation
  • biotic interactions
  • biodiversity
  • ecosystem processes
  • vegetation modeling
  • environmental sustainability

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Vegetation Changes in Response to Climatic Factors and Human Activities in Jilin Province, China, 2000–2019
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 8956; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13168956 - 10 Aug 2021
Viewed by 310
Abstract
Dynamic change in vegetation is an integral component of terrestrial ecosystems, which has become a significant research area in the current context of global climate warming. Jilin Province in northeast China is an ecologically fragile area, and there is an urgent need to [...] Read more.
Dynamic change in vegetation is an integral component of terrestrial ecosystems, which has become a significant research area in the current context of global climate warming. Jilin Province in northeast China is an ecologically fragile area, and there is an urgent need to understand its vegetation changes and responses to both climatic factors and human activities. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was used to analyze trends in vegetation growth, and indicated significant growth overall. The NDVI of different vegetation cover types is increasing, indicating that the vegetation is continuously greening, and in descending order, the growth trends were grassland (0.0035/year) > permanent wetland (0.0028/year) > cropland (0.0027/year) > forest land (0.0022/year) > barren land (−0.0001/year). Grassland and cropland vegetation types included the most severely degraded areas, with fluctuating NDVI values. Precipitation was the main positive controlling climatic factor of NDVI in the western regions of the study area, while average temperature was the main factor in the eastern regions. Precipitation was the main climatic control factor for grassland and cropland, while forest land was limited by precipitation and average temperature. Barren land and permanent wetland were slightly negatively correlated with precipitation. From 2000 to 2019, the residual values for NDVI increased from −0.0121 to 0.0116, and the impact of human activities on vegetation changed from negative to positive. By 2019, the proportion of positively affected zones was as high as 94.01%, and the negatively affected zones were mainly distributed across transitional areas of cropland and grassland, and urban and built-up land and forest land. Full article
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