Urban Blue-Green Infrastructure and Ecological Planning: Ecosystem Services, Climate Resilience, and Human Health

Dear Colleagues,

Urban areas are increasingly affected by global environmental change, facing growing challenges related to climate extremes, environmental stressors, and public health risks. In this context, urban blue-green infrastructure (BGI), including green spaces, water bodies, and ecological networks, has emerged as a key nature-based solution to enhance environmental quality, urban resilience, and human well-being. By providing ecosystem services—such as heat mitigation, air purification, and stormwater regulation—BGI plays a critical role in shaping sustainable urban systems. Despite substantial progress, important challenges remain in understanding how these functions vary across space and populations, interact with environmental risks, and can be effectively integrated into urban planning and decision-making.

This Special Issue aims to advance a systems-level understanding of the role of blue-green infrastructure and ecological planning in supporting ecosystem services, climate resilience, and human health in urban environments. In this context, ecosystem services serve as the key mechanism linking blue-green infrastructure to environmental regulation, climate resilience, and human health outcomes. This Special Issue adopts a broad ecosystem-based perspective, encompassing urban landscape patterns, ecological structures, and ecosystem services as interconnected components of urban systems. We welcome studies that assess the impacts of blue-green infrastructure using both direct measures (e.g., ecosystem service indicators) and proxy indicators (e.g., land cover, greenness, or spatial configuration), recognizing that these approaches capture ecosystem services both explicitly and implicitly. This topic aligns closely with the scope of Urban Science by promoting interdisciplinary research that integrates urban ecology, environmental science, spatial epidemiology, hydrology, and geospatial data science. Contributions employing advanced approaches such as remote sensing, machine learning, and GeoAI are also encouraged.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Urban blue-green infrastructure and ecosystem services
• Quantification and spatial distribution of ecosystem services
• Climate change, extreme events, and urban resilience
• Nature-based solutions for climate adaptation
• Environmental exposure and human health in urban systems
• Environmental justice and equity in access to blue-green infrastructure
• Ecological planning and sustainable urban development
• Land use dynamics and environmental impacts in urban areas
• Urban water systems and hydrological processes
• Remote sensing and geospatial analysis of urban environments
• Machine learning and GeoAI applications in urban studies
• Urban–rural gradients and regional sustainability

We welcome both theoretical and applied research that advances understanding of urban blue-green infrastructure and its role in sustainable and resilient cities. Interdisciplinary studies that bridge research and planning practice are strongly encouraged.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Yanni Cao
Dr. Jianyong Wu
Dr. Kaiguang Zhao
Dr. Junran Li
Dr. Weifeng Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 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.

• urban blue-green infrastructure
• ecosystem services
• environmental health
• climate change
• urban resilience
• nature-based solutions
• geospatial analysis
• remote sensing
• machine learning