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Sustainable Forest Ecology and Conservation
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Sustainable Forest Ecology and Conservation

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Forestry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 September 2023) | Viewed by 2660

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Xuefeng Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Natural Sciences, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Princess Anne, MD 21853, USA
Interests: plant photosynthesis; productivity and biomass allocation patterns; fine root and mycorrhizal fungal hyphal dynamics; soil microbial activities; greenhouse gas emissions; litter decomposition processes, as well as plant responses to environmental changes, including elevated CO2, warming, N deposition, and sea level rise

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forests cover approximately 30% of the Earth’s total land area, store 80% of the Earth’s total plant biomass, and harbour most of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. They support food security, jobs, and livelihoods for millions of people. Moreover, forests play a key role in combating climate change by sequestering a huge amount of carbon from atmosphere every year. However, forest coverage has been declining over the past few decades. To reverse this trend and optimize the economic and ecological benefits of forests, an in-depth knowledge of forest ecosystem functioning and services and their responses to environmental changes is urgently required.

 As an international and cross-disciplinary, scholarly, open access journal, Sustainability features studies on the ethnical, environmental, cultural, economic, and social sustainability of human beings. We launch this Special Issue focusing on sustainable forest ecology and conservation to improve our understanding of the ecological services forests provide and the challenges we face and explore new and effective ways for the better conservation, restoration, and sustainable use of global forest resources. The Special Issue will enrich the coverage of Sustainability by discussing and developing new ideas and research directions in this field. We propose several themes, including forest conservation and restoration and forest ecological services and their responses to environmental changes.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following: forest biodiversity, forest conservation practices, forest productivity, forest C sequestration and cycling, and forest responses to environmental changes, including N deposition, elevated CO2, and warming and altered precipitation.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Xuefeng Li
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 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 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.

Keywords

  • climate change
  • biodiversity
  • carbon sequestration
  • forest management
  • conservation
  • N deposition
  • soil health

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 24094 KiB  
Article
Characteristics of Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence in the Three River Headwaters Region, Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau during 2001 to 2020
by Jun Miao, Fei Xing and Ru An
Sustainability 2023, 15(19), 14177; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151914177 - 25 Sep 2023
Viewed by 919
Abstract
The ecology of the Three River Headwaters Region (TRHR) is related to the long-term sustainable development of Qinghai Province and the whole of China. The change in chlorophyll fluorescence is an important index to measure the ecological environment. Therefore, it is of great [...] Read more.
The ecology of the Three River Headwaters Region (TRHR) is related to the long-term sustainable development of Qinghai Province and the whole of China. The change in chlorophyll fluorescence is an important index to measure the ecological environment. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the spatial and temporal distributions of Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF)and the related influencing factors in the TRHR. In this study, a high-resolution SIF dataset (2001–2020) was selected to be averaged on a time scale of years and months to investigate the annual and seasonal SIF characteristics, and the influencing climate factors were analyzed in combination with meteorological data by statistical method. The results showed that the SIF values ranged from 0.05 to 0.073 during 2001–2020, with a peak value of 0.073 in 2005 and 2009 and a minimum value of 0.05 in 2002. The averages of SIF values were higher in the source regions of the Yellow River source region (YR) and Langcang (Mekong) River source region (LCR) than in the source region of the Yangtze River source region (YZR). The SIF values of the TRHR in July, August and September were significantly higher than those in other months. The maximum value occurred in August at 0.11, and the minimum value was 0.008 in December. The precipitation had greater effect on the inter-annual variations in SIF. The monthly variation of SIF is influenced by precipitation, temperature and relative humidity. In addition, the influence of human activities and altitude on SIF should not be ignored. The results have certain reference value for protecting vegetation in the TRHR, and provide a reference for other regions to analyze the spatiotemporal changes and influencing factors by using SIF data. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Forest Ecology and Conservation)
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15 pages, 1829 KiB  
Article
Livelihood Analysis and a New Inferential Model for Development of Forest-Dependent Rural Communities
by Beytollah Mahmoudi, Eric Zenner, Davood Mafi-Gholami and Fatemeh Eshaghi
Sustainability 2023, 15(11), 9008; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15119008 - 2 Jun 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1345
Abstract
The livelihood of many households and communities in the Central Zagros of Iran is strongly dependent on income from forests. While this has led to the widespread over-utilization of forests, poverty levels have remained high and rural development low. The objective of this [...] Read more.
The livelihood of many households and communities in the Central Zagros of Iran is strongly dependent on income from forests. While this has led to the widespread over-utilization of forests, poverty levels have remained high and rural development low. The objective of this study was to understand how households utilize forests and to what extent forests contribute to household income and alleviate poverty in order to develop strategies to raise families out of poverty and offer development perspectives to communities that avoid destructive forest utilization. To do so, semi-structured interviews were conducted in five rural communities, community poverty was quantified using several indices (e.g., the Census Ratio Index, Poverty Gap Index), the level of rural development was quantified using socio-economic indicators, and an inferential model was developed that combines household dependence on forests with the level of rural development to provide development perspectives. Local households earned income from nine livelihood strategies that involve forests. Forest-dependent strategies provided the second highest economic share (18.1%) of household income, averaging IRR 27.7 million (USD 657) annually, and moved 12% of households above the poverty line (76% still remained below). Without forest income, most indices of poverty decreased, income inequality increased by 11%, and poverty depth increased 1.54-fold. The low development index of most villages indicates that rural villagers are heavily dependent on forests to meet their livelihood. Our conceptual model indicates that communities should pursue different development strategies that consider whether households depend on forests to meet their livelihood or derive more supplemental income. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Forest Ecology and Conservation)
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