sustainability-logo

Journal Browser

Journal Browser

Sustainable Mobility within the Context of Spatial Connectivity: Geography, Networks, and Economy

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 9367

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Regional and Economic Development, Agricultural University of Athens, Nea Poli, 33100 Amfissa, Greece
Interests: network science; regional economics and development; spatial and transportation networks; econophysics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens 11855, Greece
Interests: rural and regional development; regional convergence; economic linkages of agriculture; input–output analysis; regional R&D activity and knowledge production

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The 21st century has been considered by many scholars and practitioners as the “age of connectivity”, in which the modern society experiences an outbreak to the way that communication is being spread worldwide.  Networks have become an integrated part of the everyday life and describe several of its aspects, such as transportation and mobility, social activity, economic interaction, knowledge exchange, education, energy production and distribution, and many more.  Within the context that connectivity is mutually related to geographical space, where human societies and activities are by default embedded to, the world can be seen as a complex system being interconnected at several geographical scales and functional levels, facilitating the convergence of geographical space that humanity in our century can witness. Therefore, the conceptualization of human mobility, which suggests a major aspect of social communication, should be revisited within the context of connectivity that describes (either directly of indirectly) all geographical and economic structures of the modern world. On the other hand, sustainability in mobility and, generally, in the the functionality of such spatio-economic systems is a major requirement of the modern society for ensuring that the growth and development taking place in interconnected spatial units has the merit to enhance both the current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations.

This Special Issue aims to contribute to the understanding of how sustainable mobility is related to the geographical space and the underlying economy, within the context of spatial connectivity. In particular, it is interested to study the symbiotic relation between these interrelated concepts (sustainable mobility, geographical space, and the underlying economy), preferably by using the network paradigm (as its introduced by network science), although other insightful approaches of spatial connectivity can be also welcomed. The Special Issue welcomes well-founded mainly empirical researches (although theoretical ones are also welcomed) which explore, study, and examine aspects of mobility within the multilevel context of geography, network connectivity, and sustainable economy. The Special Issue welcomes researches that deal with spatial networks that are modeled at all levels of geographical scale (e.g. global, international, national, interregional, regional, and urban) and with diverse aspects of mobility (e.g. human, goods, information) or functionality of geographical economic systems, in which the conceptualization of network modeling and sustainability prevail. The main focus of the Special Issue is to promote multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, although well-founded approaches focusing on a single discipline can exceptionally be welcomed.

Overall, this Special Issue intends to develop further conceptual links between Network Science, Economic Geography, Transportation Engineering, and Sustainability and to promote multidisciplinary research contributing to a better conceptualization of our wonderfully complex world.

Dr. Dimitrios Tsiotas
Prof. Dr. Christos T. Papadas
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 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

  • sustainable mobility
  • spatial networks
  • networks of spatial interaction
  • transportation networks
  • tourism networks
  • spatial networks in the global, international, national, regional, and urban economic contexts

Published Papers (4 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

19 pages, 2212 KiB  
Article
Evolution of Spatial Structure of Tourist Flows for a Domestic Destination: A Case Study of Zhangjiajie, China
by Tianzhi Liu, Fen Luo and Jiawen He
Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3271; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043271 - 10 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1229
Abstract
Transportation facilitates the flow of tourists generating tourist flows, which produce flow effects on the spatial scale. By analyzing the evolution of tourist flows in Zhangjiajie by various modes of transportation over a long time series, the results show that the degree of [...] Read more.
Transportation facilitates the flow of tourists generating tourist flows, which produce flow effects on the spatial scale. By analyzing the evolution of tourist flows in Zhangjiajie by various modes of transportation over a long time series, the results show that the degree of development of the destination transportation network affects the dominance of the tourism node. Specifically, in the “train period”, Zhangjiajie, Changsha, Fenghuang, and Jishou core destinations become dominant with the “Matthew Effect”. In the “road period”, Jishou and Mengdonghe destinations decline, with the “Filtering Effect”. In the “high-speed railway period”, Zhangjiajie and Changsha are connected with more distant origins, and the “Diffusion Effect” occurs. It is worth noting that the development of high-speed rail has created a substitution effect for trains over long distances, and self-driving has created a substitution effect for trains over short and medium distances. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

20 pages, 10622 KiB  
Article
Evolution Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Global Dairy Trade
by Ziming Bai, Chenyang Liu, Hongye Wang and Cuixia Li
Sustainability 2023, 15(2), 931; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15020931 - 4 Jan 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2273
Abstract
There are imbalances and uncertainties in the global supply and demand of dairy products, owing to the adverse influence of overall economic changes, dairy prices, agricultural politics, the COVID-19 pandemic, and severe climate. This paper aims to explore the evolving characteristics and influencing [...] Read more.
There are imbalances and uncertainties in the global supply and demand of dairy products, owing to the adverse influence of overall economic changes, dairy prices, agricultural politics, the COVID-19 pandemic, and severe climate. This paper aims to explore the evolving characteristics and influencing factors of the global dairy trade pattern and make recommendations for the sustainable development of the global dairy trade. This paper studies the evolutionary characteristics of the global dairy trade pattern from the perspective of the overall structure, individual characteristics, and core–periphery structure through complex network analysis (CNA), using the countries involved in dairy trade from 2000 to 2020. Furthermore, this study explores the influencing factors of the dairy trade network using a quadratic allocation procedure (QAP). The results indicate that the global dairy trade network has been expanding, with prominent scale-free features and small-world characteristics. Individual countries display obvious heterogeneity, whereas the core import regions of the dairy shift from Europe, East Asia, and America to North America, the Middle East, and East Asia. Contrary to this, there is no significant change in the core export regions. Consequently, the entire dairy trade network represents a clear core–periphery structure. Moreover, the income per capita gaps, geographic distance gaps, and common language always affect the trade value and dairy trade relations across the countries. Meanwhile, economic level gaps and regional trade agreements have become increasingly significant. Thus, the dairy trade may not follow the “border effect”. Lastly, this paper also extends recommendations for the sustainable development of the dairy trade. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

23 pages, 7838 KiB  
Article
The Topology of Cultural Destinations’ Accessibility: The Case of Attica, Greece
by Areti Kranioti, Dimitrios Tsiotas and Serafeim Polyzos
Sustainability 2022, 14(3), 1860; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031860 - 6 Feb 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2149
Abstract
This paper studies the cultural landscape in the prefecture of Attica, Greece, within the context of network science. Tourism is a global and complex phenomenon with a considerable effect on space. Among its diverse forms, cultural tourism stands out, since people often travel [...] Read more.
This paper studies the cultural landscape in the prefecture of Attica, Greece, within the context of network science. Tourism is a global and complex phenomenon with a considerable effect on space. Among its diverse forms, cultural tourism stands out, since people often travel to explore different cultures and civilizations. The engagement of different stakeholders in the establishment of policies in regard to tourism development and its relation to cultural heritage demonstrates the need for sustainable spatial planning in cultural tourism areas. According to network science, a modern discipline already contributing to the research in tourism geography, tourism destinations can configure complex spatial networks and be studied in terms of network analysis and statistical mechanics. This paper models the accessibility network of cultural destinations in Attica (ACDN), the capital region of Greece, into a graph, which provides an excellent case study of multilayer network modeling, as is equipped with high quality transportation, accommodation, and cultural infrastructures. The ACDN nodes represent museums and archaeological sites and its edges express possible connections between nodes by different means of transport (car, pedestrian, and public transport). The analysis aims to evaluate the layer’s capacity in the service of the accessibility of the cultural destination tourism market in Greece and reveals two major communities in the structure of ACDN, an urban core and a peripheral, configured by spatial constraints and distinct transportation mode functionality, along with uncovering deficiencies in the public transportation setting of the cultural tourism market of Attica. Overall, this study highlights the requirement for spatial planning and tourism management to be aware of geographical, topological, and functional features of a cultural tourism market and promotes the symbiotic relationship of sustainable tourism development and network science. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

12 pages, 2457 KiB  
Article
Spatial Connectivity and Regional Economic Resilience in Turbulent Times
by Elias Giannakis and Christos T. Papadas
Sustainability 2021, 13(20), 11289; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132011289 - 13 Oct 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2373
Abstract
The increasing number of economic shocks and disruptions and their highly heterogeneous territorial impacts reopened the debate on the ability of regions to withstand and recover from exogenous shocks. This paper focuses on the recessionary impact of the 2008 global financial economic crisis. [...] Read more.
The increasing number of economic shocks and disruptions and their highly heterogeneous territorial impacts reopened the debate on the ability of regions to withstand and recover from exogenous shocks. This paper focuses on the recessionary impact of the 2008 global financial economic crisis. It empirically explores the relationship between pre-crisis spatial connectivity and economic resilience across European Union (EU) regions over the 2008–2015 period. The empirical analysis is performed on a sample of 1312 NUTS-3 regions in 25 countries. Standard, spatial and multilevel hierarchical regression models are applied to investigate the effect of spatial connectivity and other pre-crisis determinants on regional economic resilience across three geographical scales: national, NUTS-2 regional and NUTS-3 regional. The results show that accessibility is an important factor for EU NUTS-3 regions to build resilience capabilities to exogenous shocks. Our findings demonstrate that higher accessibility is associated with greater regional economic resilience. The model results indicate a positive effect of migration and a negative effect of the ageing population on regional reaction to the crisis. Our analysis highlights the importance of country effects and spatial spillover effects on the ability of regions to shape resilience capabilities. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop