Special Issue "Building Resilient Mountain Landscapes and Communities: Enhancing Disaster Risk Reduction and Community Resilience in Mountain Regions"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. A.J. (Angelo Jonas) Imperiale
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Cultural Geography, University of Groningen, Landleven 1, 9747 AD Groningen, The Netherlands
Interests: cultural geography; cultural anthropology; social sciences, social impact assessment, community resilience, disaster risk reduction, sustainable development, rural and mountain regions and communities, social-ecological system theory, sustainable resource management, governance, policy, sustainable development goals, social sustainability
Prof. Dr. Frank Vanclay
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Cultural Geography, Director Urban & Regional Studies Institute, University of Groningen
Interests: social impact assessment; social impact management; project induced displacement and resettlement; social license to operate; social sustainability; extractive industries and society; rural communities; community engagement; human rights impact assessment; business and human rights; Indigenous rights; free, prior and informed consent; natural resource sociology
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the last two decades, the dramatic consequences of destructive events, including earthquakes, avalanches, bushfires, landslides, floods and other disruptive hydro-geological processes that have hit mountain areas around the world have further highlighted the vulnerability of mountain communities to disasters in high and low-income countries. Along with these threats, new threats have emerged. For example, the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis have made enhancing disaster risk reduction (DRR) and implementing community resilience-building strategies more crucial than ever.

Due to the increasing disasters, transformation towards sustainability and integrating effective DRR and community resilience-building strategies into development projects and disaster management interventions is essential.

But what do enhancing DRR and community resilience mean in social terms or from a social science perspective? How do local vulnerabilities and the root causes of disasters negatively influence disaster risks and impacts? How can local disaster risks and impacts and the social pre-conditions of disasters be prevented? How can these capacities and resilience be engaged to reduce vulnerabilities and risks and enhance DRR at all levels of society? What are the main constraints to building resilience in society?

This special issue seeks papers that discuss how to build more resilient mountain landscapes and communities. It will contribute to sustainable mountain development and the body of knowledge concerning the social dimensions of planned interventions in mountain areas. It aims to integrate DRR and community resilience thinking into the sustainable mountain development discourse.

We welcome papers that are related to any of the following topics:

  • Vulnerabilities, risks, and the root causes of disaster (e.g. inequity, vulnerability and social risk creation processes) and/or capacities and resilience (i.e. social learning and transformation) in mountain communities;
  • Past and ongoing development (e.g. infrastructure; agriculture; agro-forestry; creation of nature conservation areas) and disaster management interventions in mountain areas (e.g. prevention; preparedness; response; recovery; reconstruction; re-development);

  • Key drivers and constraints to vulnerability and risk-reduction, and resilience-building, and lessons learned;

  • Specific examples, case studies of good practice, or theoretical discussion around topics such as community and eco-system based DRR initiatives, community empowerment processes, community-led recovery, reconstruction, and development, eco-museums, community-based resource management, slow-food, local food production systems, cittaslow, sustainable/responsible tourism, and related topics.

Dr. A.J. (Angelo Jonas) Imperiale
Prof. Dr. Frank Vanclay
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

  • sustainable mountain development
  • disaster risk reduction
  • community resilience
  • community wellbeing
  • vulnerabilities
  • social learning
  • transformation towards sustainability

Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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