Land doi: 10.3390/land15071159

Authors: Yiming Zhang Hongjiang Liu Jia Wang Longhuan Wang Siyu Xue

Against the backdrop of coordinated development in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, Hebei Province serves as an ecological safety barrier for the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei urban agglomeration. Conducting research on land use and land cover change (LUCC) and ecosystem service value (ESV) holds significant theoretical and practical value for elucidating the mechanisms underlying ESV evolution under the combined effects of rapid urbanization and major ecological engineering projects, and for applying these findings to regional land-use planning and ecological conservation and restoration efforts. This research aligns with the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2020–2030). Based on land-use data from 2000, 2010, and 2020, along with 11 categories of natural and socio-economic drivers, this study systematically analyses regional LUCC and calculates ESV using locally adjusted equivalence factors. It examines the spatiotemporal evolution patterns of ESV through the analysis of local spatial autocorrelation indices (LISAs), centroid, and standard deviation ellipses, and employs a GeoDetector to measure ESV drivers. Three scenarios—a natural evolution scenario (NES), economic development scenario (EDS), and ecological protection scenario (EPS)—were established. The patch-generating Land use simulation (PLUS) model was employed to simulate LUCC for 2030 (Kappa = 0.840) and calculate ESV. Results show that from 2000 to 2020, forest land and impervious surfaces in Hebei Province continued to expand, while cropland and grassland decreased. The cumulative ESV increased by 4.85 billion yuan. Slope was the primary driver of spatial variation in ESV, and the interaction between natural and socioeconomic factors demonstrated significantly stronger explanatory power. In 2030, the total ESV under all three scenarios was lower than in 2020. The EPS reached an ESV of 344.72 billion yuan, representing a relatively suitable model that balances development and conservation.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071158

Authors: Yu Liu Baojun Yang Lan Fang Muhammad Rizal Razman

Land use planning in the Black Soil Region of Northeast China must be sustainable, taking into account food security, water use, GHG emissions, and economic returns. Current crop suitability mapping and single-objective optimization studies tend to analyze crop occurrence, crop structure, and spatial allocation independently, which is of little value in spatial planning. In this study, a three-stage integrated approach is proposed, involving deep learning crop occurrence mapping, multi-objective crop structure optimization, and suitability-guided spatial allocation. During Stage I, a lightweight U-Net semantic segmentation model, BlackSoilCropNet, is developed to provide per-pixel occurrence probabilities of rice, maize, soybean, and other types of crops based on Sentinel-2 time series and auxiliary environmental predictors. In stage II, NSGA II will optimize the area structure of the crops and reduce water consumption and GHG emissions with the maximum profit under the constraints of the cropland, water, and production. Selected Pareto optimal solutions are transformed to crop allocation maps and transition hotspot outputs in Stage III. The framework resulted in three viable planning options. The economic priority scenario resulted in the highest profit (USD 27.9 billion), with higher water consumption and emissions. The environmental-priority scenario resulted in a reduction in water use to 118.2 × 109 m3 and emissions to 50.9 MtCO2e, but at the cost of lower production and profits. There was a balance between economic stability and an improved environment in the balanced scenario. The framework provides a reproducible, geospatial decision support approach for sustainable farming planning and black soil conservation overall.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071157

Authors: Oun H. Alsharif Ahmed E. M. Al-Juaidi Mohamed Sh. Elmanadely

Soil erosion in arid watersheds poses a significant threat to land productivity, water resources, and long-term sustainability, necessitating spatially explicit and data-driven prioritization frameworks for targeted conservation. This study developed an integrated GIS-based multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework to assess soil erosion susceptibility and prioritize twelve sub-basins (SB) of the Wadi Numan basin (683 km2), Makkah Region, Saudi Arabia. Morphometric analysis was conducted using sixteen parameters derived from a 10 m Digital Elevation Model (DEM), and Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) data were obtained from the Esri Sentinel-2 10 m dataset. Four MCDM techniques—additive ratio assessment (ARAS), complex proportional assessment (COPRAS), multi-objective optimization by ratio analysis (MOORA), and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS)—were applied under the criteria importance through inter-criteria correlation (CRITIC) objective weighting, and their consistency was evaluated using the Spearman correlation coefficient test (SCCT) and the Kendall Tau correlation coefficient test (KTCCT). MOORA achieved the highest consistency for morphometric analysis (SCCT: 0.982; KTCCT: 0.958), while TOPSIS performed best for LULC analysis (SCCT: 0.800; KTCCT: 0.731). The final combined prioritization used MOORA for morphometric analysis and TOPSIS for LULC analysis, with proportional weighting of 72.7% and 27.3%, respectively. The scheme categorized the sub-basins into five levels of soil erosion priority. The composite ranking classified SB-9 and SB-1 under very high priority (25.94%); SB-2 and SB-3 under high priority (6.40%); SB-5, SB-6, and SB-10 under medium priority (36.37%); SB-4 and SB-8 under low priority (18.11%); and SB-11, SB-12, and SB-7 under very low priority (13.18%). This integrated method provides a practical decision-support tool for identifying and managing sub-basins susceptible to soil erosion, thereby promoting the long-term sustainability of land and water resources.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071156

Authors: Shasha Luo Yanwei Feng Xiucheng Wang Yang Sun

As a typical human–nature coupled region, the coordination between the agricultural resource–environment system and regional development in the Fujian-Taiwan region is crucial for sustainable development. However, the underlying mechanisms and scale heterogeneity of this relationship remain unclear. This study employed a comprehensive evaluation approach to assess Agricultural Resource and Environmental Carrying Capacity (ARECC) and Regional Development Level (RDL) in the Fujian-Taiwan region in 2010, 2015, and 2019. A Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD) model was used to quantify the coordination relationship, while a geographical detector was applied to identify influencing factors at multiple scales. The main findings are as follows: (1) ARECC in Fujian increased gradually (average value: 0.046 → 0.052 → 0.075), whereas Taiwan exhibited a decline followed by recovery (average value: 0.449 → 0.408 → 0.491), with overall levels remaining higher than those of Fujian. RDL in Fujian was generally higher than that in Taiwan (average value: 0.260 > 0.212), and the average growth rate of Taiwan’s counties and cities was lower than that of Fujian (10.42% < 16.62%). (2) Overall, Fujian maintained a comparatively balanced relationship between ARECC and RDL, with maladjustment occurring only in Nanping City. In contrast, Taiwan experienced a substantially higher degree of maladjustment, with 40.90% of its counties and cities falling into maladjusted categories. Spatially, CCD in Fujian displayed a gradient decline from Fuzhou toward the southern, northern, and western regions, while high- and low-value areas in Taiwan were interspersed. (3) The coupling coordination mechanism exhibited significant scale heterogeneity, and corresponding differentiated regulation strategies were proposed. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the coordination mechanisms between ARECC and RDL in the Fujian–Taiwan region and provide references for promoting cross-regional agricultural collaboration and sustainable development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071155

Authors: Angelo Castrorao Barba Pilar Diarte-Blasco Manuel Castro-Priego Giuseppe Bazan

In recent years, the concept of resilience has become increasingly prominent across a wide range of disciplines, offering a valuable lens through which to explore how landscapes evolve over the long term [...]

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071152

Authors: Huaiyu Chen Yulin Zhang Hongwen Qin Ling Wu

Labor and land resources are two key factors of production. The extent of their internalization significantly influences rural resilience. This study evaluates the resilience of different rural business formats by measuring the degree of land resource internalization and the output elasticity of labor. Based on survey data from 47 counties in China, this study analyzes eight types of rural formats using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and bootstrapping methods. The results show that business formats such as Gourmet Catering, Rural Homestay and Camping, Specialty Local Product Sales, and Health and Wellness Tourism have established stable labor input relationships and exhibit characteristics of economic self-sufficiency. In contrast, other formats have only partially established such relationships and demonstrate a lower level of internalization of resource externalities. The finding from this study indicates that enhancing the internalization of land resources and optimizing labor allocation are crucial for strengthening rural resilience.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071154

Authors: Seungho Kim Chiung Ko Chuyoun Chang

This study addresses the limited nationwide examination of Mountain Villages as strategic targets for regional revitalization amid rapid depopulation and population aging. Focusing on Mountain Villages located within Depopulation Regions in the Republic of Korea, this study quantitatively assessed workation suitability at the Eup-Myeon-Dong level and identified priority areas and differentiated policy directions. A workation suitability index was calculated using the CRITIC (Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation) method, and spatial clustering and potential–demand characteristics were examined through LISA (Local Indicators of Spatial Association) and quadrant analysis. The results showed that transportation accessibility indicators, including travel time to expressway interchanges and railway stations, had high information content in differentiating workation suitability among Mountain Villages. Suitability was high in the border areas between Gyeonggi-do and Gangwon State and parts of the central inland region, whereas low suitability was observed in northern Gangwon State and northern Gyeongsangbuk-do. High–High clusters tended to overlap with high-potential and high-demand areas, while Low–Low clusters were mainly associated with low-potential areas. By integrating suitability, spatial clustering, and demand conditions, this study provides an empirical framework for spatial decision-making. The findings suggest that workation policies for Mountain Villages should distinguish priority implementation areas from foundation-building areas according to accessibility, infrastructure, and demand levels.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071153

Authors: Héctor Mangas-Velayos Jorge Mongil-Manso María del Monte-Maiz Raimundo Jiménez-Ballesta

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have reached significant levels during the industrial era, necessitating the implementation of effective carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies. Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) using basalt has emerged as a high-potential strategy, leveraging its mafic composition to sequester CO2 as stable carbonates. This review analyzes ERW’s geochemical processes, application methods, and multifaceted co-benefits, such as restoring “background fertility” and improving soil structure. The literature indicates that while small-scale applications range from 1.5 to 6 Mg·ha−1·yr−1, intensive agricultural rates typically reach 40–100 Mg·ha−1·yr−1. Global models estimate a sequestration potential of up to 4.9 × 109 Mg CO2·yr−1 for basalt, although field-scale results vary significantly, reaching uptake rates of up to 4 Mg CO2·ha−1 depending on pedological conditions and crop types. Despite this promise, transitioning to large-scale deployment faces critical hurdles, including operational difficulties in mechanized spreading and a scarcity of audited, long-term field data. Future research must prioritize standardized protocols and comprehensive economic analyses to bridge the gap between theoretical models and empirical evidence. Ultimately, ERW represents a multifaceted solution for climate stabilization and sustainable food security, provided that sequestration efficacy and environmental safety are rigorously verified through high-application field trials.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071150

Authors: Tonghui Yu Ran Xu Binqian Dai Xuan Zhu Jiqiang Niu

Amid tightening ecological constraints, accelerating urbanization transition, and increasingly complex spatial governance, the coordinated evolution of Urban Green Space (UGS) and New-Type Urbanization (NTU) has become central to green transition and high-quality development in major river basins. Drawing on city-level panel data for the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) and the Yellow River Basin (YRB) from 2006 to 2022, this study integrates a Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD) model, spatial statistical analysis, and interpretable machine learning to investigate UGS-NTU coordination, with emphasis on spatiotemporal evolution, spatial differentiation, and nonlinear contribution pathways. The findings indicate that: (1) UGS and NTU levels rise in both basins, but their spatial trajectories differ substantially. The YREB exhibits river-oriented expansion and gradient diffusion, whereas the YRB features nodal agglomeration and discontinuous expansion. (2) The CCD improves overall in both basins, with downstream areas leading, the middle reaches following, and the upper reaches lagging behind; UGS lag is widespread in the middle and upper reaches. (3) The YRB shows stronger spatial agglomeration, more pronounced regional differentiation, and more persistent low-value clustering, while the YREB is characterized by stable high-value clustering in the Yangtze River Delta. (4) The YREB is mainly associated with green space system optimization, whereas the YRB is more closely associated with improvements in the foundational capacities of NTU. Both associations exhibit clear nonlinear characteristics. This study provides empirical support for differentiated green transition and high-quality development strategies in major river basins.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071151

Authors: Di Zhu Mianlin Yang Bowen Qiu Ximo Wang Yongkang Cao

In the context of urban regeneration and the redevelopment of existing urban land and built assets, industrial heritage has become a cross-sectoral policy issue involving heritage conservation, spatial reuse, land governance and public cultural uses. Existing studies have primarily examined individual adaptive reuse projects and spatial strategies, whereas the long-term evolution of policy texts has received less systematic attention. Taking Shanghai as a case study, this paper constructs a clause-level corpus of industrial heritage-related policies issued between 2006 and 2025. The corpus comprises 524 clauses extracted from 86 policy documents covering heritage conservation, historic building conservation, cultural and creative industries, land use, planning, urban renewal and industrial tourism. Overall and stage-based Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) models are combined with cross-period topic alignment to identify the structure and evolution of policy themes. The results show that Shanghai’s industrial heritage policies have been shaped not only by heritage conservation concerns, but also by industrial land governance, the transformation of underused industrial land, the regeneration of existing industrial spaces (EIS), industrial culture, tourism and public service provision. Four stages are identified: initial exploration, regulatory consolidation, revitalisation and renewal, and integrated consolidation. Across these stages, four major evolutionary pathways can be observed: industrial land supply and governance, renewal of EIS and old industrial areas (OIA), industrial heritage conservation and value recognition and the expansion of industrial culture, tourism and public services. The paper provides clause-level evidence for understanding industrial heritage governance in China’s urban regeneration context and highlights the need for stronger coordination between heritage, land, planning, industry, culture and tourism policies.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071148

Authors: Ju-Hyeon Park Jeong-Hee Eum Jeong-Min Son Uk-Je Sung

Under the growing threat of urban heat stress, street canyons play a critical role in shaping the pedestrian thermal environment. While street greenery is an effective mitigation strategy, its performance varies substantially with physical characteristics—such as aspect ratio, street width, and sidewalk width—highlighting the need for spatially adaptive design. This study evaluates the effects of sidewalk width, street orientation, and planting structure on thermal conditions in a humid subtropical climate in Daegu Metropolitan City, Republic of Korea. The analysis focuses on open low-aspect-ratio street canyons (H/W = 0.86 for E–W and 0.43 for N–S orientations). Using a validated ENVI-met (Version 5.6.1) model based on field measurements from Daegu, Republic of Korea, 56 street-greening scenarios were simulated by systematically varying sidewalk width, street orientation, planting rows, spacing, and planting structure. Results show that multi-row planting served as the primary structural framework governing thermal performance. Optimal configurations varied with sidewalk width, with two-row planting for 6 m sidewalks and three-row planting for 10 m sidewalks providing the most effective cooling. The greatest cooling (−2.02 °C) was achieved when optimized multi-row configurations were combined with multi-layer planting. Once optimal multi-row configurations were established, the presence of understory vegetation had a greater influence on thermal improvement than its specific composition, allowing flexibility in understory design. Clear spatial asymmetries were identified, with the highest thermal stress occurring on the north-side sidewalk in E–W streets and the west-side sidewalk in N–S streets. Targeted planting in these locations produced greater cooling benefits than uniform strategies. These findings provide a spatially grounded framework for climate-responsive street greenery and offer practical design guidance, highlighting the need for context-specific, optimized multi-row planting strategies adapted to local urban and climatic conditions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071149

Authors: Jinyan Wen Xiaoyan Fan Jialin Li

Efficient and unimpeded factor allocation constitutes the cornerstone of urban–rural integrated development. Using panel data from 281 prefecture-level cities in China spanning the period from 2011 to 2023, this study employs a two-way fixed-effects model to empirically investigate the direct effects and transmission channels of the application of data elements on urban–rural integrated development. The findings are as follows: (1) The application of data elements significantly promotes urban–rural integrated development. On average, a 1% increase in the level of data element application is associated with a 0.089% rise in the urban–rural integrated development index. This result remains robust across a battery of robustness tests, with pronounced regional heterogeneity. (2) Mechanism analysis demonstrates that data elements application drives urban–rural integrated development through three primary channels: facilitating labor mobility, mitigating capital misallocation, and elevating total factor productivity (TFP). (3) Heterogeneity analysis based on regional characteristics reveals that this promoting effect is more significant in regions with superior economic growth, more advanced industrial structures, and abundant human capital. (4) Spatial spillover analysis indicates that while data element application facilitates local urban–rural integrated development, it simultaneously exerts a negative spatial spillover effect on neighboring regions. Accordingly, policymakers should prioritize strengthening digital infrastructure in less developed regions and take the lead in establishing cross-jurisdictional data sharing platforms coupled with benefit compensation mechanisms, thereby fostering coordinated advancement and mutually beneficial outcomes in urban–rural integrated development across regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071147

Authors: Heekyun Oh

This study examines how rising tourism demand reshapes residents’ environmental responsibility behaviors (ERB) in South Korea, and the moderating role of metropolitan status therein. Using a balanced panel of 174 municipalities over 2015–2023, semi-log regression with a quadratic tourism-demand term and Driscoll–Kraay standard errors is applied to address heteroskedasticity, autocorrelation, and cross-sectional dependence. The estimates show that tourism demand displays a positive effect on ERB (a 6.6% increase in recycling volume proxy per million visitors) up to a certain threshold, beyond which the influence reverses—consistent with an inverted U-shaped relationship under overtourism. Turning points are approximately 11.06 million visitors for non-metropolitan municipalities and 6.95 million for metropolitan ones, where saturation occurs earlier. The negative interaction between metropolitan status and the squared tourism-demand term indicates that the erosion is sharper in metropolitan areas. Among controls, inbound visitor share (+2.8%), regional population (+3.6% per ten thousand residents), resident cost-sharing ratio (+0.4%), tourism special zones (≈1.45 times non-designated areas), tourism complexes (+19.2%), and COVID-19 intervention (≈1.30 times pre-pandemic) are significant, while the fiscal self-reliance ratio exhibits a small adverse impact. These findings suggest tourism policy should favor demand-management over growth-oriented strategies, aligned with regional structural differences and community-based environmental governance.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071146

Authors: Hongwei Pei Huailan Ma Borui Li Kexuan Cao Jin Zhang

The urban heat island (UHI) effect has become a prominent ecological and energy challenge amid rapid urbanization. This study comprehensively examined the spatiotemporal dynamics of UHI intensity in built-up areas across 216 Chinese cities spanning five climatic zones from 2000 to 2020 and quantified UHI-triggered energy consumption, as well as revealing its driving mechanisms. The results showed a significant increasing trend in UHI intensity across China’s urban built-up areas during summer days, summer nights, and winter nights from 2000 to 2020, with corresponding annual growth rates of 10.23, 5.61, and 5.08 km2·°C·a−1, respectively. However, winter daytime UHI intensity declined dramatically from 4.72 °C in 2000 to −10.21 °C in 2020, which can be attributed to the reduction in socioeconomic activities during the COVID-19 period. UHI intensity intensified significantly across all climate zones, with the largest increases observed in the middle temperate zone and warm temperate zone, reaching 127.23 km2·°C and 116.04 km2·°C, respectively. Spatially, 39.8% of the 216 cities exhibited a significant increasing trend in UHI intensity, while only 2.8% showed a decreasing trend. After 2005, the contribution of large cities to UHI intensity continued to rise, reaching 54% in 2020. This study estimated UHI-induced energy consumption in terms of standard coal equivalent, with the northern and middle subtropical zones jointly accounting for over 61.9% of the annual average consumption. Regression results confirmed that impervious surface expansion served as the dominant positive driver of UHI, while vegetation coverage exerted a strong cooling effect. These findings can facilitate the formulation of region-specific UHI mitigation and energy conservation policies for cities under different climatic conditions and at diverse development scales. Mechanistic analysis further revealed that variations in impervious surface area dominated the rise in UHI intensity, whereas changes in the normalized difference vegetation index exerted a significant mitigating effect. These findings provide a solid scientific basis for targeted UHI mitigation and energy-saving management strategies for cities across different climate zones and urban scales.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071145

Authors: Jiqing Lin Kunyong Yu Xin Zheng Zhiyuan Chen Jian Liu

Spatial differentiation of urban natural basement conditions leads to significant differences in urbanization development patterns and land evolution patterns in different regions. Taking Fuzhou, a typical coastal basin city located in the Minjiang River Estuary, as the study area, this paper analyzes the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of land use/cover change (LUCC) and quantifies its driving mechanism from 1990 to 2020, by using the land use transition matrix (LUTM), the center-of-gravity model (CGM), the standard deviation ellipse (SDE), and the optimal parameters-based geographical detector (OPGD). The results show that (1) the land use structure has undergone drastic restructuring, the built-up land has increased significantly, the grassland has decreased significantly, and the cropland and forest land have shown phased evolution characteristics: a light increase from 1990 to 2000 and a continuous decline from 2000 to 2020. Water exhibited a fluctuating pattern: shrinking from 1990 to 2000, expanding from 2000 to 2010, and shrinking again from 2010 to 2020. (2) Constrained by the terrain of the Minjiang Estuary Basin, the gravity centers of cropland and grassland shifted northwestward, forest land moved southeastward, water shifted northeastward, and built-up land expanded northward. (3) Driving factors exhibited stagewise differences: socioeconomic factors played a dominant role from 1990 to 2000, with population density (q = 0.4029) and nighttime light (q = 0.3639) being significantly higher than other factors. From 2000 to 2010, the terrain constraint effect continued to intensify, with GDP (q = 0.4470), nighttime light (q = 0.3658) and DEM (q = 0.3638) as the dominant factors. From 2010 to 2020, urban land pattern evolution was jointly driven by multiple factors. This study clarifies the land use evolution mechanism of coastal basin cities during urbanization, providing a scientific reference for the sustainable development of similar coastal basin cities.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071144

Authors: Soroush Saneimoghaddam Ineta Geipele Antra Kundzina Janis Zvirgzdins

Rapid urbanization and the aging of large-scale building stocks have created a critical disconnection between strategic urban planning and physical structural realities. This study introduces a multi-dimensional resilience framework to evaluate the structural integrity and socio-economic exposure of Riga’s urban fabric at the parcel level. By integrating high-resolution wear-out data with a normalized Economic Priority Index (EPI), the study analyzes the distribution of 2405 buildings identified in the terminal wear-out phase of the Bathtub Curve reliability model. The results reveal that 92.7% of critically vulnerable buildings fall outside the scope of the city’s RTIAN 2030 strategic intervention framework, including the majority of high-risk structures supporting 13,416 business units and 646,033 residents. Spatial intersection analysis further demonstrates that contemporary modernization initiatives, including digital pilot zones, effectively bypass 98% of these critical structural hotspots. Predictive scenario analysis confirms that without a strategic reorientation toward a proactive, reliability-based monitoring framework, these excluded corridors face an exponential escalation of structural risk. Specifically, this study examines the urban spatial resilience of Riga’s building stock through the integrated PLE-Bathtub Curve framework, evaluates the spatial alignment of RTIAN 2030 with identified vulnerability zones, and assesses how effectively Smart City pilot initiatives target structurally vulnerable clusters defined by the Economic Priority Index (EPI). This research provides a replicable diagnostic framework, calibrated for post-socialist urban contexts, to support municipal authorities in realigning investment priorities with empirical physical vulnerabilities, ensuring long-term metropolitan continuity.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071143

Authors: Xiaojuan Nan Wenguang Ding Xiaoting Pu Weifeng Ye Xupeng Wu

With the development of ecotourism, national park recreation research has evolved from a marginal branch of tourism studies into a vibrant interdisciplinary field. Although scholarly attention has grown, a systematic, holistic overview of its global development trajectory and knowledge structure remains lacking. To address this gap, this study presents a bibliometric analysis of national park recreation research published from 1994 to 2024, based on the Web of Science Core Collection. Using CiteSpace for scientometric visualization, we examine the field’s evolutionary phases, collaboration networks, thematic distributions, and emerging trends. Our results show that national park recreation research has progressed through three distinct stages: initial emergence, steady development, and rapid growth. Collaboration among individual researchers and institutions remains generally limited. Dominant research themes include spatial planning and zoning, ecological conservation, stakeholder engagement, cultural ecosystem services, and tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors. Building on these findings, we synthesize a comprehensive knowledge structure of this field and outline key future research priorities. This overview enables researchers to quickly grasp the field’s global research panorama and identify targeted thematic directions. We call for greater attention to understudied areas, including visitor social psychology, community participation, digital technology applications, and adaptive management in future studies.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071142

Authors: Qian Tang Jingyi Chen Xueqin Cai Shijin Qu

Low-carbon development (LCD) and intensive urban land use (IULU) are critical objectives for sustainable urban development. Existing studies have usually evaluated LCD or IULU separately, whereas the dynamic relationship between carbon-transition capacity and land-use intensification under rapid urbanization remains insufficiently clarified. This gap limits the ability of policymakers to design spatially differentiated and synergistic actions for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study investigates the relationship between LCD and IULU and its transformation within the sustainable development framework, using the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River Urban Agglomeration (MRYRUA) in central China as a case study. Results indicate a strong positive correlation between LCD and IULU. Crucially, their coupling exhibited a distinct U-shape trajectory from 2005 to 2020; it decreased from 0.89 in 2005 to 0.73 in 2013 and then recovered to 0.84 in 2020, suggesting a relative weakening of the interaction followed by recoupling rather than complete decoupling. The identified U-shaped trajectory holds vital implications for other developing nations, suggesting that integrating low-carbon goals into spatial planning and land policies from the early stages of urbanization can pave the way for a faster transition to a green, intensive, and high-quality development model. Moreover, although both LCD and IULU exhibited positive trends, a widening gap was observed between provincial capitals and non-provincial cities. We, therefore, recommend integrating multi-stakeholder collaboration and implementing differentiated strategies to enhance the synergistic effects of LCD and IULU for cities at different phases of the LCD–IULU transition.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071140

Authors: Prabhjot Singh Neeraj Rani Sohan Singh Walia Rajeev Kumar Gupta Maqsood Ul Hussan Mohamed A. Mattar Ali Salem

Prolonged cultivation of cereal-based cropping systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plain has contributed to soil degradation, groundwater depletion, and declining soil organic carbon levels, highlighting the urgent need for climate-resilient, sustainable crop diversification strategies that enhance soil carbon sequestration and improve overall soil health. A 6-year field experiment assessed 10 cropping systems (CSs) using a randomized complete block design with four replications, focusing on their effects on soil carbon stocks and sequestration at two soil depths (0–15 cm and 15–30 cm). It was inferred from the results that there is a significant variation in soil carbon stocks, with maize–peas–spring groundnut (CS6) having the highest surface carbon stock (13.0 Mg ha−1) and baby corn–potato–okra (CS10) having the highest sub-surface carbon stock (11.9 Mg ha−1). Carbon sequestration peaked in CS6 at 5.06 Mg ha−1 at 0–15 cm, and its sequestration rate was the highest (0.84 Mg ha−1 yr−1). Total organic carbon (TOC) ranged from 0.63% in Rice–Wheat (CS1) to 0.73% in CS6, with similarly high values in other diversified systems. Very labile carbon (VLC) was highest in basmati rice, late-sown wheat, and cowpea (CS3) and CS6, demonstrating the benefits of legume-based systems. At depths of 15–30 cm, trends were consistent but lower. Water-soluble carbon (WSC) and hot water-soluble carbon (HWSC) showed significant differences across systems, with CS3 recording the highest values. The findings indicate that cropping systems incorporating legume diversification and green manuring enhance carbon stocks, sequestration rates, and soil carbon stability, demonstrating that crop diversification is an effective means of increasing soil carbon storage, promoting soil health, and supporting sustainable agricultural production in Northwestern India.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071141

Authors: María Teresa Baquero Larriva Andrea Alonso Ester Higueras Higueras García

Global urbanization and population aging urgently require cities to adapt to support older adults’ independence and well-being. While active mobility drives health and social equity, micro-scale proximity remains under-studied. This study evaluates ‘hyper-accessibility’ to essential daily services for older adults in Madrid and Munich, examining distributive spatial justice and its implications for healthy aging. Using quantitative spatial analysis, walking accessibility to seven key services was modeled at a strict 300 m threshold. These metrics were intersected with a sociodemographic disadvantage score to reveal urban disparities. Key findings expose structural contrasts. In Madrid, 50.82% of older adults achieve hyper-accessibility to daily services, though green areas (8.86%) and health facilities (15.82%) represent critical gaps. Conversely, Munich’s decentralized fabric yields hyper-accessibility for just 31.6% of seniors, with community centers (7.19%) and sports facilities (8.6%) being severely restricted. These spatial inequities highlight how restrictive walking thresholds function as invisible barriers to active mobility, isolating older populations. Ultimately, integrating hyper-accessibility metrics into local planning is vital for mitigating these baseline deficits and fostering age-inclusive, socially just urban environments.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071138

Authors: Chenfeng Xu Zibo Zhu Yan Cheng Ziruo Feng Haolan Huang Yihan Li Lu Hou Yike Hu

With increasing urban solid waste generation and the advancement of Zero Waste City initiatives, sanitation-facility siting has become central to urban waste governance but continues to trigger Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) conflicts related to perceived environmental risk, spatial equity, and asset-value concerns. Existing studies often explain NIMBY effects through objective exposure or facility distance, while less attention has been paid to the mismatch between objective risk and residents’ subjective fear and its cost implications. Taking Suzhou, China, as a case study, we develop an integrated framework to assess NIMBY effects associated with current and planned sanitation facilities. An objective risk index is constructed based on facility hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. Resident questionnaires are used to measure subjective fear, and the bias between objective risk and subjective fear is quantified. Probit, hedonic price, and welfare models are then combined to evaluate the effects of this bias on facility support, housing prices, and marginal social welfare losses. The results show that (1) sanitation facilities in Suzhou present clear type differentiation and spatial clustering, with terminal treatment facilities mainly located on the urban periphery, and transfer, sorting, and recovery facilities more embedded in daily living spaces; (2) stronger subjective fear, particularly risk perception, significantly reduces residents’ support for facility expansion, especially under the planned scenario; (3) perception bias is negatively associated with housing prices and generates substantial marginal social welfare losses, especially when the planned expansion of facilities is considered at the system level. This study extends the explanatory framework of environmental NIMBY effects and provides evidence for integrating risk communication, spatial equity compensation, and marginal social welfare loss reduction into Zero Waste City governance.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071139

Authors: Zhitao Li Peizhe Sun Yongkui Yang Xinzhan Sun Zhiheng Qin Xuhuan Dai Bin Wang Yun Li Fei Fang Guirong Yang

This study focuses on the pollution assessment, potential ecological risks, influencing factors, and migration pathways of trace elements from slag heaps of coal gangue and pyrite to farmland in the mountainous areas of southeast China. Based on the pollution index and correlation analysis of trace elements, Cd, As, Pb, and Zn were identified as characteristic pollutants. In the solid waste, surrounding soil, and farmland soil, the mean concentrations of Cd, As, Pb, and Zn of pyrite slag heaps were generally 9.7–86.7 times higher than those of coal gangue dumps. In contrast, higher levels of As were found in coal gangue surrounding soil, while higher Cd and As concentrations existed in coal gangue-affected farmland soil. Mantel test results revealed significant statistical correlations between characteristic pollutants and environmental factors (geographic location, weather, and climate), particularly for pyrite slag heaps. The potential migration pathways from solid waste to the surroundings (soil and water) and then to farmland soil were finally revealed using partial least squares path modeling. This study demonstrated that the pyrite slag heaps were more heavily polluted than the coal gangue dumps. The pyrite slag heap was more susceptible to environmental factors, which could rapidly transfer trace elements to farmland soil via the surrounding soil and water. Therefore, this study offers a statistical framework to infer plausible trace element migration trends via multi-medium monitoring data. It also delivers comparative analytical references for risk assessment of two distinct types of slag heaps.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071134

Authors: Zhaoyuan Liang Hongbo Zhao Man Huang Xunzhi Yin

Rural policy is pivotal to achieving the UN 2030 Agenda amid rapid global urbanization. This study integrates bibliometric analysis, stage-based comparative policy analysis, and quantitative SDG alignment modeling across six economies (USA, Germany, Japan, China, India, South Africa) spanning 79 rural policy documents from 1913 to 2025. Each document was scored against all 17 SDGs using a three-point ordinal scale, with AI-assisted coding validated through independent human review (inter-coder reliability: Cohen’s κ = 0.763, indicating substantial agreement prior to reconciliation). Bibliometric results document a post-2015 shift from sectoral silos to integrated sustainability frameworks. Generalized Linear Models (GLMs) identify a pattern of “aggregate convergence with structural divergence”: the year of policy enactment is the sole significant predictor of overall SDG alignment (p < 0.01), while income stage and development status show no independent effect on total scores, indicating that global discourse diffusion drives the universal rise in SDG coverage. However, per-SDG regressions demonstrate that income stage and the developed–developing divide significantly shape which specific SDGs receive attention: “late-emergence” goals scale with income, while “development-imperative” goals are systematically prioritized in developing countries. Three distinct evolutionary trajectories are proposed as interpretive constructs derived from comparative analysis: a U-shaped remedial path in developed economies, a J-shaped leapfrogging path in developing economies, and China’s unique Compressed Checkmark trajectory. A Research–Policy–Development nexus model suggests that economic stages act as a “filter” channeling governance capacity toward goals aligned with prevailing social needs. The findings suggest that developing countries may benefit from a “late-comer discursive advantage” in policy-text alignment; however, policy-text alignment does not imply implementation capacity, and realizing SDGs depends fundamentally on developmental resources to bridge vision and reality.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071137

Authors: Zenglin Hu Luodan Cao Jialin Li Ruiqing Liu

Land use/land cover (LULC) is one of the core driving factors affecting terrestrial ecosystem carbon storage and exacerbating global warming. As an area with the most intense land–sea interactions, China’s coastal zone has experienced drastic LULC transition and carbon storage fluctuations during the rapid urbanization process. Based on the InVEST model, this study analyzes the spatiotemporal dynamics of LULC and carbon storage (CS) in China’s coastal regions from 2000 to 2024, and simulated multi-scenario carbon storage trajectories for 2050 integrating the SSP-RCP scenarios of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). Furthermore, the XGBoost-SHAP and generalized additive models (GAMs) were introduced to deeply analyze the nonlinear characteristics and temporal heterogeneity of the driving mechanisms of CS evolution. The results show the following: (1) During the study period, the LULC structure of the coastal region was dominated by cropland and forestland consistently accounting for over 85%, but exhibited a competitive pattern characterized by the continuous expansion of built-up land severely squeezing ecological spaces. (2) The total regional CS showed an overall phased downward trend, accompanied by increasing fragmentation of high carbon sink areas. Notably, as the core carbon pool, the reduction in forest area was the dominant factor causing regional net carbon losses. (3) CS remained relatively stable under SSP1-2.6, representing a sustainable development pathway with low greenhouse gas emissions. In contrast, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5 exhibited more pronounced declines in carbon storage by 2050, indicating that SSP1-2.6 is the most favorable pathway for maintaining long-term carbon storage stability in China’s coastal regions. (4) The driving mechanism of CS has undergone a profound shift from being dominated by natural ecological baselines to human activities. Land use intensity (LUI) has emerged as the strongest predictor in the model, and the nonlinear impacts of human activities have grown increasingly complex over time. This study highlights the complex impacts of high-intensity human disturbances on the coastal carbon cycle, providing a scientific basis for formulating differentiated carbon management strategies and adaptive spatial land-use planning oriented toward the “Dual Carbon” goals.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071136

Authors: Kangning Ma Shuai Zhang Zhenxing Jin Wensheng Yu Chengxin Wang

Urban–rural integration (URI) represents a pivotal pathway to realizing sustainable development within urban–rural spatial systems. It is of paramount importance in addressing the challenge of reconciling ecological conservation with high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin. Leveraging panel data from 78 cities in the Yellow River Basin spanning the years 2006–2023, this research constructs an evaluation index system that encompasses five dimensions: population, economy, society, ecology, and space. Through the comprehensive application of kernel density estimation, exploratory spatiotemporal data analysis, and panel quantile regression models, a systematic analysis of the spatiotemporal evolution patterns and transition mechanisms of URI is conducted. The results disclose that URI in the Yellow River Basin demonstrates a trend of “overall enhancement with regional disparities”. From 2006 to 2023, the URI of the basin witnessed an average annual growth rate of 2.86%. Spatially, it presented distinct features: high-level agglomeration in the lower reaches, accelerating-growth path dependency accompanied by internal divergence in the middle reaches, and balanced yet low-level development in the upper reaches. The local spatial evolution of URI follows a pattern characterized as “predominant stability and limited transitions”. In detail, high-level regions sustain their advantages, low-level regions encounter obstacles in achieving breakthroughs, and the spillover effects between adjacent regions remain relatively restricted. The driving mechanisms exhibit significant “phase-spatial” dual heterogeneity, with four distinct patterns identified. In light of these findings, policy recommendations are put forward, including the establishment of a multi-scale, coordinated spatial governance system.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071135

Authors: Cheng Wei Xijun Peng Guibo Zhang Yuxiao Cheng Mingkun Chen Huihui Liao

Linpan in Chengdu Plain, a distinctive form of dispersed rural settlement on the Chengdu Plain, is composed primarily of traditional rural dwellings embedded within woodlands environments. These settlements play multifunctional roles related to agricultural production, daily life, ecological sustainability, and the preservation of folk culture, thereby holding significant ecological and cultural value. In recent decades, rapid urbanization has profoundly impacted the spatial patterns, ecological environments, and livelihood systems of Linpan in western Sichuan, posing severe challenges to their preservation and development. To investigate the extent and nature of these changes, this study examines the spatiotemporal evolution of Linpan in Chengdu over five time periods from 1980 to 2020, employing both macro- and micro-scale analyses. Settlement types were classified based on their transformation trajectories, and representative cases were selected to identify and interpret the key driving forces behind these changes. The results indicate that: (1) at the macro level, Linpans have undergone a clear transition from small-scale, widely distributed, and irregularly shaped patterns to more centralized, aggregated, and standardized spatial configurations, particularly in the peri-urban areas of Chengdu; (2) at the micro level, the internal composition of Linpan has changed substantially, with a marked decline in woodlands coverage. The original integration of buildings and trees has shifted towards a spatial arrangement characterized by peripheral and fragmented vegetation; (3) Changes in production methods have prompted the spatial restructuring of Linpan settlements, transitioning from uniformly dispersed arrangements to clustered formations along road-adjacent resource points. Concurrent population and housing migration has reduced the total number of Linpan, while individual settlements have increased in size and density. Additionally, planning and construction policies have guided the morphological transformation of Linpan from organically evolved forms to geometrically regular configurations.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071132

Authors: Yawen Han Luca Maria Francesco Fabris Yuanjing Zhang

Brownfield greening (BG) has become an important approach to addressing urban land scarcity, environmental remediation, and sustainable urban development. This scoping review analysed 116 English-language publications from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The review identified five major research themes: pollution and remediation, regeneration design, brownfield characteristics and greening benefits, planning and decision-making, and stakeholder perceptions. Findings indicate a transition from contamination-focused studies towards integrated approaches emphasising ecological restoration, social values, and multifunctional green infrastructure. Research methods have evolved from qualitative case studies to interdisciplinary approaches involving spatial analysis, ecological modelling, scenario simulation, and participatory methods. Existing studies mainly focus on regenerated sites and site-scale analyses, while contamination and remediation processes are often insufficiently incorporated into planning, design, and ecosystem-service assessments. The review highlights the diverse ecological, social, economic, and cultural benefits generated by BG and identifies key research gaps, including the need to better integrate remediation into regeneration processes, to conduct long-term monitoring, to conduct comparative international studies, and to include evidence from underrepresented regions. Overall, BG is increasingly recognised as a multifunctional strategy for sustainable urban regeneration.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071133

Authors: Hongbin Liu Jiahong Zou Qiang Liu Xiuru Dong

To address the dilemma of ‘non-grain use of cultivated land’ and support China’s requisition–compensation balance policy, this study developed a multi-dimensional assessment framework integrating the production, ecological, and economic dimensions (3D evaluation model), using Shenyang City as a case study to demonstrate the framework’s operational application and policy relevance. Based on 34,704 Third National Land Survey (TNLS) parcels (27,408.39 ha), we applied the constraint factor assessment method and entropy-weighted composite index model. The results show that non-cultivated agricultural land (NCAL) is generally marginally suitable (citywide average score: 2.50/4), with highly suitable areas accounting for only 4.04% (1106.30 ha). These areas exhibit a triangular spatial pattern distributed across northeastern Faku County, central Sujiatun District, and southern Xinmin City. Sensitivity tests using equal weights and ±20% dimension-weight perturbations confirm that high-suitability area remains limited (3.37–5.63% under entropy-weight scenarios; 8.54% under equal weights). Primary limiting factors include severe organic matter deficiency (average 19 g/kg), shallow soil depth, unfavorable pH, land requiring engineering restoration (94%), and punctiform heavy metal contamination (7.53% of plots, 2065.05 ha as spatially excluded areas). Consequently, we propose a five-tier sequential restoration framework: (1) near-term priority recultivation of highly suitable areas; (2) mid-term topsoil reconstruction for moderately suitable areas; (3) medium-to-long-term topsoil stripping and thickening for low-suitability areas; (4) long-term soil amelioration and slope-to-terrace conversion for marginally suitable areas; and (5) strict prohibition of restoration in unsuitable areas. This study establishes a spatially explicit decision-making system integrating “evaluation–classification–sequencing”, and distinguishes technical suitability from economic, institutional, and policy feasibility, providing a decision-support framework for scientifically implementing the cultivated land requisition–compensation balance policy. Future empirical studies using post-restoration monitoring data are needed to test its predictive accuracy against observed restoration outcomes.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071131

Authors: Mengyao Li Yixing Zheng Zhaowei Tang Yiran Bai Chengyong Shi Ying Tang

Taking 563 national key rural tourism villages across 12 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in western China as the research object, this study integrates multi-source data on physical geography, transportation location, socioeconomic conditions, and historical culture based on the ArcGIS platform. It comprehensively applies kernel density analysis, spatial autocorrelation analysis, buffer analysis, Spearman correlation analysis, Geodetector, and the relative enrichment index to examine the spatial distribution characteristics of these villages and their associated spatial factors. The results show that key rural tourism villages in western China exhibit an overall clustered and uneven distribution, forming a spatial pattern characterized by “high concentration in core areas, extension along secondary corridors, and sparse distribution across vast hinterlands.” The core agglomeration areas are mainly located in the Sichuan Basin, the Chongqing metropolitan area, and the Guanzhong Plain. In terms of physical geography, the distribution of key villages shows certain spatial associations with major river basins, low-slope areas, and low-relief terrain. In terms of human factors, population density and road network density are important associated factors, and the combined population–transportation conditions have strong explanatory power for the spatial differentiation of key village density. With regard to historical culture, folk-custom inheritance villages and red-culture heritage villages account for relatively high proportions, while different cultural types show certain regional agglomeration or corridor-like distribution characteristics. The findings can provide references for zoned optimization, transportation connectivity, cultural resource integration, and coordinated regional development of key rural tourism villages in western China.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071130

Authors: Maria Antônia Falcão de Oliveira Mariane Souza Reis Sidnei João Siqueira Sant’Anna Maria Isabel Sobral Escada

Selective logging is an important component of forest degradation in the Brazilian Amazon. The detection and mapping of selective logging via satellite imagery remains challenging because spatial features associated with selective logging are generally small-scale, spatially heterogeneous, and short-lived disturbances in the forest. This study evaluated the potential of Sentinel-2 MSI imagery at 10 m and 20 m, and Landsat-8 OLI imagery at 30 m and pansharpened 15 m, to discriminate land-cover classes associated with selective logging in the state of Mato Grosso in the Brazilian Amazon for 2017 using the Random Forest algorithm. The resulting maps were used to characterize selective logging alerts from the Deter system and areas under Sustainable Forest Management Plans (SFMP). Sentinel-2 at 10 m achieved the highest overall accuracy, while Landsat-based products tended to estimate larger areas of exposed soil and, in some cases, regeneration. Deter polygons showed higher proportions of exposed soil and degradation and lower remaining forest cover than SFMP areas, suggesting that Deter alerts tend to capture more advanced stages of visible forest disturbance. Overall, the results indicate that differences in overall accuracy among the evaluated products were small, but class-specific performance and spatial representation patterns remain important for interpreting selective logging-related disturbance in the Amazon.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071129

Authors: Andrés Caballero-Calvo Yolanda Jiménez Olivencia Laura Porcel Rodríguez

Landscape observatories have gained increasing relevance as socio-ecological observation systems aimed at monitoring, analysing and communicating landscape transformations and landscape evolution, although the field remains characterised by conceptual fragmentation and the absence of systematised international inventories. This study addresses this gap through the development and analysis of a curated inventory of 113 landscape observatories and related initiatives, constructed from a systematic web-based search and an explicit process of data screening and coding. The research examines the territorial distribution, temporal evolution, declared objectives, methodologies, operational scales and temporal continuity of the identified initiatives through descriptive and interpretative analyses supported by the existing literature, including the role of remote sensing, spatial analysis and repeat photography. The results reveal a strong European predominance, particularly in France, and a marked concentration of initiatives operating at regional scales, temporally associated with the implementation of the European Landscape Convention. The dated subset suggests a marked expansion after 2000, although many initiatives lack explicit chronological information. The analysis also highlights substantial heterogeneity in functional orientations, distinguishing between observatories with continuous photographic monitoring, temporally limited observation systems, landscape study centres, documentary repositories and other initiatives with non-systematic uses of photography. Furthermore, the study identifies a recurrent gap between declared objectives and the explicit articulation of methodologies and temporal monitoring schemes. Overall, the paper proposes a typological synthesis of landscape observatories and related initiatives and discusses their potential role as hybrid socio-ecological monitoring systems for adaptive territorial governance. The results also highlight the need for clearer analytical frameworks and greater methodological transparency to facilitate comparison and strengthen their contribution to territorial knowledge and governance.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071128

Authors: Stephen Cheye Kathryn Gazal Robert C. Burns

Bioenergy crops are widely regarded as a promising approach to support renewable energy production, diversify farm income, and enhance land-use efficiency. Despite these potential benefits, adoption rates remain low, and empirical understanding of landowners’ decision-making processes is still emerging. This study examines landowners’ interest in and likelihood of adopting bioenergy crops, explicitly differentiating between early-stage interest and near-term adoption intentions. Survey data from 207 landowners are analyzed using a bivariate probit model to identify key factors influencing both outcomes. The results reveal a marked disparity between expressed interest and adoption likelihood, with a significantly greater proportion of landowners indicating interest than those willing to adopt in the near term. Economic orientation increases adoption interest by 9.5 percentage points, while identity orientation increases adoption likelihood by 6.6 percentage points. Determinants such as increased awareness, land size, experience, and participation in conservation programs exert varying influences across different decision stages. These findings suggest that stated interest and stated near-term adoption likelihood represent related but distinct dimensions of adoption readiness, shaped by different economic, identity-based, and institutional factors. Effective promotion of bioenergy crops requires more than general awareness campaigns. Policies should combine financial incentives, technical assistance, market development support, and outreach strategies that present bioenergy crops as compatible with landowners’ economic goals, stewardship values, recreational uses, and long-term attachment to their land.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071127

Authors: Ruofan Xu Yi Zhang

In order to promote the coordinated development of land use and energy equity, this study empirically examines the impact of land use on energy equity and its underlying mechanisms, using panel data from prefecture-level cities in China. The main findings are as follows: (1) An increase in land use intensity significantly hinders the development of energy equity. After a series of robustness checks and endogeneity treatments, this conclusion is still reliable. (2) Population agglomeration, energy consumption intensity, green innovation, and government intervention are the main pathways through which land use affects energy equity. (3) Small and medium-sized cities, resource-based cities, eastern China, and areas north of the Hu Line are where this negative effect is primarily concentrated. These results offer important policy recommendations for the coordinated governance of land use and energy equity.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071126

Authors: Yanan Li Jing Li Yoginder P. Chugh Yu Han Zhenqi Hu Haobei Liu Zongyang Chen Yiting Su

Scientific studies of mine closure and ecosystem management have become very important since the rate of coal mine closures in China has increased rapidly over the last decade. This study first analyzed spatiotemporal changes in land use and ecosystem services value (ESV) during the period 2000–2020 around the Kailuan Mining Area in Tangshan City. The area has a history of over 100 years of continuous mining activities in the region. The analyses used the PLUS model, multi-scenario simulation, and ESV equivalent factor method and multi-source data on land use, mining activities, socioeconomic factors, and climatic conditions. The study then projected land-use changes and spatiotemporal ESV characteristics for the year 2030 for two alternatives: (1) the Current Development Scenario (CDS), representing the current pace of development without mine closure; and (2) the Ecological Restoration Scenario (ERS), representing mine closure and ecological restoration. Key results include: (1) during 2000–2020, cultivated land and construction land were the primary land uses, with the overall trends showing decrease in cultivated, forest, pasture, and unused lands, varying water use areas, and continuously increasing construction land; (2) the revised ESV results show that total ESV declined from 31.27 million USD in 2000 to 25.30 million USD in 2020, a net decrease of 6.19 million USD, mainly because of cropland loss and degradation of forest and grassland; and (3) for 2030, the CDS projected a continued decline in total ESV to 24.30 million USD, whereas the ERS increased total ESV to 26.50 million USD, which is 2.19 million USD higher than the CDS and 1.20 million USD higher than the 2020 baseline. Compared with the CDS, the ERS increased cropland by 13.20 km2 and reduced construction land by 10.06 km2, indicating that reclaiming subsided water bodies and idle construction land into cropland and restored ecological land can enhance ecosystem services while mitigating subsidence-related risks. The framework can support data-driven post-mining land-use planning and ecological management in resource-based regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071125

Authors: Polina Lemenkova

Efficient management of soil–water resources is critical for global food security under intensifying climatic and demographic pressures. This review provides a comprehensive synthesis of artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed deep learning methodologies applied to soil–water interactions in precision agriculture. The physical and hydraulic foundations of soil–water systems—including water retention, unsaturated flow governed by the Richards equation, and soil degradation processes—are examined and situated within a unified framework of AI-based modeling and decision support. Classical machine learning (ML) algorithms (Random Forests, Support Vector Machines, gradient boosting) and deep learning architectures (convolutional neural networks, long short-term memory networks, transformers) are evaluated with respect to their capacity to predict soil moisture dynamics, estimate hydraulic properties, support smart irrigation scheduling, and generate digital soil maps at field-to-regional scales. Distributed training paradigms, federated learning for privacy-preserving multi-farm analytics, and edge AI deployment on low-power IoT hardware are assessed as enabling infrastructures for scalable agricultural intelligence. This review further addresses explainability, uncertainty quantification, and ethical dimensions inherent to AI-driven agricultural systems. Key challenges—including training data scarcity in data-poor regions, model interpretability, integration with physics-based hydrological models, and real-time deployment constraints—are critically discussed. Prospective research directions encompass physics-informed neural networks, foundation models for earth observation, autonomous digital twins of soil–water systems, and federated learning architectures aligned with data sovereignty frameworks. The synthesis underscores AI’s transformative potential for sustainable agricultural water management while delineating the technical and sociotechnical barriers that must be resolved to realize this potential at a global scale.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071124

Authors: Yasir Ahmed Solangi Rakan Alyamani Farheen Solangi Kashif Ali Solangi

The Al-Ahsa Oasis region is an important agricultural area; however, continuous spatial–temporal monitoring is essential to assess and mitigate the impacts of climate change and land use change. The current study examines environmental and land cover changes in the Al-Ahsa Oasis region from 1990 to 2025 by utilizing spectral indices derived from multiple satellites. Multi-temporal Landsat imagery (Landsat 5, 8, and 9) was processed in Google Earth Engine (GEE) to derive key biophysical indicators, including the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), land surface temperature (LST), and bare soil index (BSI). Supervised classification techniques were employed to generate LULC maps for each time step, enabling the assessment of spatiotemporal land cover dynamics. In addition, a random forest (RF) machine learning algorithm was applied to accurately quantify and map the distribution of palm trees across the study area. The results showed that NDVI values fluctuated between −0.19 and 0.75 during the period from 1990 to 2025. Higher vegetation density was observed in central and eastern areas, with maximum values of −0.44–0.75 in 2025. The higher LST was observed in 2025, with a range of 34.7 to 54.6 °C, and the lower LST was observed in 1990 with a range 28.7 to 48.34 °C. BSI values decreased from −0.40 to 0.46 between 1990 and 2025 to a more variable range of −0.27 to 0.36, indicating reduced soil exposure. The classification of LULC numerical data shows a rapid rise in urban development of 67.19% and a 25% decrease in vegetation area. Furthermore, the results of the RF model indicate that palm tree area increased by 16.23% from 1990 to 2025, with overall accuracy of 98.15, and kappa coefficient of 0.962. This research highlights that urban expansion impacts environmental indicators such as LST, while the increasing trend of NDVI could support the palm trees expansion. This study finds valuable information for policymakers and land use planners to develop sustainable urban growth strategies, protect agricultural lands, and enhance oasis ecosystem resilience. Combined remote-sensing-based monitoring into regional planning frameworks can inform decision making for balancing urban development, environmental protection, and long-term agricultural sustainability in the Al-Ahsa Oasis.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071123

Authors: Richard Stoffle Kathleen Van Vlack Michael J. Evans Britsy Rizo

Cultural habitats are the relationships between traditional peoples and the plants, animals, and geological features of their ancestral landscapes. These relationships form the human dimension of geoheritage. However, research on cultural habitats and research on geoheritage have typically developed separately. This review brings these two frameworks together by drawing on four decades of ethnobotanical and ethnoecological studies, involving 24 research projects with Native American tribes and traditional communities in North America and the Caribbean. Using ethnographic methods, habitat mapping, and indices to measure cultural significance, the research documented how traditional communities use plants and define the extent of their cultural habitats. Analysis of six case studies shows that each cultural habitat is closely tied to a unique geological or landform feature. In all cases, the official heritage boundaries set by nomination processes are smaller than the areas traditional peoples recognize as their cultural habitats. This gap comes from differences between Western approaches to defining heritage and the ways indigenous and traditional communities understand their responsibilities to the land. The review calls for wider standards of evidence, collaborative approaches to setting boundaries, and co-stewardship to be included in geoheritage management policies.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071122

Authors: Sena Aydemir Figen Akpınar Yasin Paşa Mehmet Ali Çelik

This study investigates the spatiotemporal dynamics of peri-urban expansion and land use transformation in Izmir, Türkiye, over 36 years (1986–2022) using an integrated GIS-based Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) framework. Multi-source datasets, including Landsat imagery, CORINE land cover (CLC) data, demographic statistics, and spatial variables (slope, transportation proximity, and distance to the city center), were combined to delineate urban, peri-urban, and rural zones. Results reveal a substantial percentage increase in urban areas from 2.8% in 1986 to 10.48% in 2022, corresponding to an expansion of approximately 7.6% (≈908.56 km2). In contrast, agricultural land declined by 5.8%, while forest areas experienced a more severe reduction of 19.1%, indicating significant environmental degradation. Population dynamics further support this transformation, with peri-urban districts exhibiting growth rates exceeding the metropolitan core average of 1.8% (1986–2010), followed by a relative slowdown to 0.5% after 2010, accompanied by outward migration-driven expansion. Spatial analysis demonstrates that peri-urban growth is strongly influenced by accessibility and topography, with development concentrated within 30–50 km of the city center and along major transportation corridors (500–1000 m buffers). Land Surface Temperature (LST) analysis indicates increasing urban heat island intensity, with surface temperatures ranging from 12 °C to 46 °C, particularly in densely built inner peri-urban zones. The MCDA-based classification identifies distinct inner and outer peri-urban belts, characterized by contrasting density, land use patterns, and environmental pressures. Overall, the findings highlight that Izmir’s peri-urbanization is a heterogeneous and rapidly evolving process driven by demographic, spatial, and policy-related factors. The study provides a replicable methodological framework and emphasizes the urgent need for integrated, sustainability-oriented planning strategies to mitigate ecological loss and uncontrolled urban sprawl.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071121

Authors: Pierluigi Morano Felicia Di Liddo Francesca Fariello

The present contribution provides a systematic review of the international scientific literature on the relationship between contaminated sites and real estate market dynamics. The objective is to investigate whether and to what extent the presence of environmental risk sources—both active or decommissioned—affects the value of surrounding residential properties. In particular, the review is focused on an examination of the methods commonly used in relevant studies to measure, interpret, and represent this impact across different geographical contexts, identifying the main magnitude ranges found in the selected contributions. Several studies consistently confirm a statistically significant negative relationship between proximity to polluting sites and real estate values, although the relevance of this effect varies considerably across case studies. Other records highlight non-notable impacts or even positive effects following remediation and redevelopment interventions. The evidence suggests that this relationship is complex and influenced by factors such as site type, contamination severity, specificities of the local urban context and community perception. Moreover, the findings underscore regional variations in the extent and nature of price impacts, reflecting diverse regulatory frameworks and remediation efforts. The outcomes of the literature review provide a robust foundation for developing more effective evaluation tools able to support decision-making processes, enabling policymakers, planners, and investors to promote sustainable urban regeneration, improve environmental justice, and reduce spatial inequalities. Ultimately, this study highlights the critical need for integrating environmental, social, and economic dimensions to fully capture the multifaceted effects of contaminated sites on property markets, thereby orienting more informed and equitable urban development strategies worldwide.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071120

Authors: Fan Liu Jiaming Liu

Tourism development potential and observed development performance do not necessarily evolve synchronously, particularly in old industrial and restructuring regions where attraction supply, market linkage, and visitor experience may be spatially uneven. This study develops a multi-source diagnostic framework for identifying tourism potential–performance mismatch across the 14 prefecture-level cities of Liaoning Province, China. Drawing on Ctrip review texts, rating scores, timestamps, platform-displayed reviewer-origin labels, A-level scenic-spot point data, and annual official city-level tourism statistics, the study constructs three dimension-specific sub-indices—the Scenic Experience Index (ESI), the Market Linkage Index (MLI), and the Attraction Foundation Index (AFI)—and synthesizes them into a Comprehensive Potential Index (CPI). The CPI is then compared with an Observed Performance Index (OPI) constructed from domestic tourist arrivals and domestic tourism revenue for 2016–2022. The results show that attraction foundation contributes most strongly to composite tourism potential, while market linkage and scenic experience condition how this structural basis is associated with observed outcomes. The CPI–OPI comparison identifies three relationship types: matched, potential-leading, and performance-leading cities. Dalian and Shenyang are high-level matched cities, Benxi and Jinzhou are high-potential but under-converted cities, and Anshan and Dandong are performance-leading cities. These findings demonstrate that favorable structural tourism conditions are not automatically transformed into realized market performance. The study contributes a multidimensional, gap-analysis-based diagnostic architecture that can support tourism-related spatial planning and territorial governance in transitional regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071119

Authors: Guiwen Liu Yipin Huang Hongjuan Wu Heng Zhang

Public open spaces (POS) in old communities are important settings for daily neighborhood life, yet many renovated POS remain underused after physical upgrading. Existing evaluations often rely on subjective perceptions, providing limited evidence on how facilities are associated with vitality. This study analyzes the associations between facility provision and POS vitality in 63 renovated POS across 11 old communities in Jiulongpo District, Chongqing, China. POS vitality is operationalized through two behavioral dimensions, use frequency and stay duration, derived from video detection and tracking using YOLOv8 and ByteTrack. Facility provision was then classified by facility type and examined in relation to the vitality indicators through descriptive analysis and Generalized Estimating Equations models. Descriptive evidence indicates substantial heterogeneity in both facility provision and POS vitality. Resting amenities and landscape elements are more commonly provided, whereas children’s facilities show the lowest provision and greater spatial selectivity. Higher use frequency and longer stay duration are concentrated in some POS. The Generalized Estimating Equations analysis further indicates that facilities are not associated with vitality in a uniform way. Children’s facilities show the strongest positive associations with both use frequency and stay duration despite their limited provision, supporting their key role in POS vitality. Landscape elements and lighting facilities are more closely associated with stay duration, highlighting the role of environmental support in sustaining longer use. In contrast, the negative associations for fitness facilities, together with the non-significant results for resting and sanitation amenities, suggest that not all facility provision translates into stronger vitality. Taken together, renovation performance should be judged not by the quantity of upgraded facilities alone, but by whether facilities support the behavioral dimensions of vitality that a POS is expected to achieve.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071118

Authors: Kaung Sett Sui Pheng Low

Post-conflict reconstruction concentrates institutional fragility, supply-chain disruption, and weak regulatory enforcement at the moment when long-term resilience trajectories are being set. Myanmar’s housing sector, operating under prolonged civil conflict and post-earthquake reconstruction pressure, exemplifies these conditions. This research adapts Singapore’s Buildable Design Appraisal System (BDAS) and Constructability Appraisal System (CAS) to Myanmar’s post-conflict housing context and translates the empirical findings into a Knowledge-Based Decision Support System (KBDSS). An integrated framework combining Value Chain Analysis (VCA), the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), and Scott’s Institutional Framework (IF) underpins the study. A questionnaire survey (n = 139) of Myanmar building professionals is analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling and Necessary Condition Analysis. The model explains 57.9% of the variance in framework adaptation; competitive advantage, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and the post-conflict/disaster context emerge as both sufficient and necessary conditions, while regulative support dominates among the three institutional pillars. These findings underpin the inference logic of a prototype KBDSS for resilient housing reconstruction. This research contributes empirical evidence on operationalising urban resilience under institutional fragility in the Global South.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071117

Authors: Dan Wu Yitong Shen Ran Tan Suhui Zhang

Rural public art is increasingly used to improve living environments and reactivate place-based culture in rural communities. However, existing evaluations remain fragmented and provide limited support for assessing intervention effectiveness and formulating targeted strategies. To address this gap, this study constructs a multidimensional evaluation system for rural public art interventions and empirically tests it through case studies of 11 villages in Songyang County, China. The system covers three dimensions: material space creation, cultural heritage and innovation, and the reconstruction of social relations. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, combining literature review, field investigation, expert consultation, AHP weighting, and Kano demand classification. The results support the validity of the proposed evaluation system and identify cultural heritage preservation and transmission, basic and cultural facilities, funding safeguards, spatial accessibility, cultural affinity, and local cultural aesthetic compatibility as stable priority indicators. The comparison between expert weighting and stakeholder sensitivity further reveals differences between strategic importance and locally perceived demand. This study provides an operational evaluation system for assessing rural public art interventions and translates the evaluation results into targeted strategies, offering empirical support for more sustainable and context-sensitive rural public art practices.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071116

Authors: Eyüp Salih Elmas Mehmet Nurettin Uğural

The rapidly urbanizing peripheries of the Global South face significant demographic pressures, leading to governance deficits that often neglect the long-term structural safety of new buildings. While regulatory frameworks predominantly emphasize initial construction quality, they frequently overlook the critical “post-occupancy” phase, during which distinct structural risks accumulate. This study introduces a reproducible, open-data risk identification framework designed to trace theoretical “windows of vulnerability” in Çekmeköy, a peripheral district of Istanbul. By triangulating temporal, spatial, and demographic municipal administrative records from 2018 to 2024, we illustrated how low-cost data can serve as proxies for prioritizing structural risk assessments. The findings demonstrate that a 103% population increase between 2008 and 2023, coupled with a 21% reduction in the average household size, has generated urgent housing demand that outpaces supply. We hypothesize that these conditions create high-probability zones for “informality creep,” where demographic pressures induce informal practices, such as unauthorized structural modifications within ostensibly formal high-rise settings. The primary contribution is a transferable algorithmic tool, the Weighted Post-Occupancy Vulnerability Index (POVI). Rather than serving as a deterministic building-level diagnostic, this framework operates much like an epidemiological screening process; it acts as a macroscopic prioritization heuristic that allows resource-constrained municipalities to proactively direct their inspection efforts. By mathematically quantifying the conditions under which post-occupancy risks develop, this framework provides an essential resource for enhancing urban resilience during reactive urbanism planning.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071115

Authors: Weiguo Fan Jinge Li Nan Chen Jiahui Li

Rural household energy-saving behavior is central to low-carbon development in ecologically fragile plateau regions. This study explores whether climate risk perception promotes household energy-saving behavior, through which livelihood capital mechanisms this effect operates, and which livelihood capital configurations support high levels of such behavior. Drawing on survey data from 315 rural households in Xining, China, a sustainable livelihood framework is integrated with the pressure–state–response model, and PLS-SEM, an ANN, and fsQCA are applied. The integrated framework regards climate risk perception as external pressure, livelihood capital as the household livelihood state, and energy-saving behavior as the behavioral response. The sustainable livelihood framework identifies the multidimensional resource conditions of rural households, whereas the pressure–state–response model specifies the causal sequence through which perceived climate pressure affects livelihood states and induces behavioral responses. The results show that climate risk perception significantly promotes energy-saving behavior. Physical, human, and social capital exert positive effects, whereas natural and financial capital exert negative effects. Moreover, natural, financial, and social capital significantly mediate the link between climate risk perception and energy-saving behavior. Multi-group analysis shows that physical capital matters more for agriculture-dominated households than non-farm households. The ANN results identify social and human capital as the strongest predictors, and the fsQCA results show that high levels of energy-saving behavior arise not from any single condition but from multiple capital configurations, in which social capital is consistently central. Energy conservation under climate risk is therefore best understood as a multidimensional, nonlinear adaptation process embedded in household livelihood structures rather than a response to any single factor. These findings extend rural energy-saving research by linking climate pressure, livelihood conditions, and configurational decision logic in a plateau socio-ecological context. Policy interventions should combine energy-efficient infrastructure, targeted financial incentives, community-based diffusion, and livelihood-sensitive support for rural households.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071114

Authors: Maria do Carmo Oliveira Jorge Antonio Jose Teixeira Guerra Colin A. Booth Leonardo dos Santos Pereira Aline Muniz Rodrigues

This study investigated the impact of recreational use on trails in the Atlantic Forest (Ubatuba Municipality, São Paulo State, Brazil) using physical, chemical and geochemical indicators. Five trails with different morphological characteristics were selected, and paired samples were collected from the trail surface (TR) and trail-side slope (TA). The statistical approach combined local analyses for each trail with global clustering (n = 19) using Student’s t-test, along with multivariate modeling through Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Pearson correlation. The analysis included physical attributes (bulk density, particle size and porosity), chemical attributes (pH, organic matter and macronutrients) and geochemical compositions (major oxides and trace elements determined by XRF). The overall results reveal systematic compaction in the trail surface (TR), with bulk density increasing from 1.32 g/cm3 (TA) to 1.37 g/cm3 (TR) (p = 0.038), and total porosity decreasing from 47.26% to 45.34% (p = 0.016). In contrast, the geochemical oxide composition (SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3) remained stable (p > 0.05), indicating the resilience of the mineral matrix. However, significant local dynamics (p < 0.05) in K2O and MgO were observed in more preserved trails, associated with surface compaction and fragmentation of the litter layer, and phosphorus showed strong dependence on organic matter (r = 0.85). Multivariate analysis indicates that degradation is predominantly physical and micromorphological at the local scale, with bulk density and porosity being the most sensitive indicators for environmental monitoring.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071113

Authors: Alessandro Raffa Monica Moscatelli

Decommissioned airfields are increasingly recognized as strategic sites for ecological regeneration, climate adaptation, and the creation of new public spaces. However, research on their transformation has predominantly focused on the environmental performance of Nature-based Solutions (NBS), often overlooking the role of inherited spatial morphology in structuring regeneration processes and outcomes. This paper proposes an AI-assisted, morphology-based proto-ontological framework for analyzing and designing post-airfield architecture. The framework was developed through the inductive and comparative analysis of a corpus of 32 urban post-airfield regeneration projects, from which recurrent inherited morphologies, transformation actions, spatial devices, and NBS were identified and structured into a relational sequence. The framework was then applied to two contrasting case studies: Maurice Rose Airfield Park (Frankfurt) and Xuhui Runway Park (Shanghai); these were selected for their different transformation logics. The results show that similar airfield morphologies can generate markedly different climatic, ecological, social, and memory-related outcomes depending on how they are transformed and linked to NBS. The study demonstrates that inherited airfield morphologies are not passive remnants but operative spatial structures, and that NBS should be understood as spatially embedded and form-generating design components. The proposed proto-ontology offers a transferable analytical model and a basis for future computational and generative design applications.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071112

Authors: Dorothée Kolberg Eva S. F. Heggem Anne K. B. Olsen Mats Höglind Hugh Riley Sigridur Dalmannsdottir

In Norway, agroclimatic zones (ACZs) are a valuable tool for national analyses in subject areas concerning the optimized management of agricultural land resources. However, current Norwegian ACZs have been criticized for having an outdated standard climate normal (1931–1960), a limited representation of the local climatic variation, a lack of important model parameters, and weak methodological documentation. Therefore, this paper presents new ACZs for Norway that address these weaknesses. The most significant methodological updates are the use of the standard climate normal of 1991–2020, additional weather data variables, the downscaling of weather data to 250 m hexagons, and the incorporation of phenological crop models for spring wheat, spring barley, and forage grass. The grass model was calibrated with the number of grass harvests at research stations, while the grain models were calibrated with subsidy claim data. The modeled zones for the three crops were combined into the general ACZs. Example maps of the crop zones and new ACZs for the selected regions and the whole country are presented. The new ACZs are more robust, agronomically relevant, and better aligned with the current climatic conditions in Norway. The deliberate exclusion of factors other than climate ensures the new ACZs’ national comparability and their applicability in policy development, land-use planning, climate adaptation, and agronomic assessments at the national scale.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071111

Authors: Lu Feng Ziyan Zhou Zhiyuan Liang

Rapid urbanisation has reshaped Shanghai’s ecological land base and intensified fragmentation of its green infrastructure (GI). This study evaluates the spatiotemporal evolution of Shanghai’s GI network from 2000 to 2020 using a resilience-informed patch-corridor-connectivity assessment. In this study, resilience is not just an explanatory label but a measurable structural criterion. Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA) was used to identify core patches; patch importance was evaluated using delta Probability of Connectivity (dPC); a Minimum Cumulative Resistance (MCR) model was used to derive potential corridors; and a gravity model was used to classify corridor importance. The results show that important ecological corridors increased from 22 in 2000 to 33 in 2010 and 68 in 2020, while the total area of the MSPA core class declined and north–south connectivity remained uneven. The key finding is not the growth of corridor number itself, but the mismatch between corridor densification and contraction of major source patches. This mismatch indicates a structural vulnerability that would be overlooked by a conventional network-optimisation reading. Therefore, based on the results of indicator-based resilience assessment, this study proposes a planning scheme that combines core-area conservation, corridor continuity, redundancy improvement, and cross-regional connectivity enhancement.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071110

Authors: Yu Zhang Bo Zhang Xiaoming Ding Li Dong

Northeast China is one of China’s major commodity grain bases and plays a strategic role in national food security. Against the background of rural population outflow and agricultural modernization, new agricultural business entities (NABEs), including family farms, farmers’ cooperatives, and agribusinesses, have become important actors in reshaping agricultural production organization. Based on registration data for 2014, 2018, and 2023, this study uses kernel density estimation (KDE), standard deviational ellipse (SDE) analysis, spatial autocorrelation analysis, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, and multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) to examine the spatiotemporal patterns and driving factors of NABEs in Northeast China. The results show that: (1) NABEs expanded rapidly from 2014 to 2023 and became increasingly concentrated in agriculturally advantageous plain areas. (2) Family farms showed the fastest expansion, farmers’ cooperatives had the widest spatial coverage, and agribusinesses were mainly concentrated around transport corridors and market nodes. (3) In terms of industrial structure, crop-production entities remained dominant, followed by animal husbandry entities, while forestry, fishery, and agricultural support service entities accounted for relatively small shares; however, their numbers continued to increase. (4) The OLS results showed that the reclamation rate and road network density had relatively stable associations with the spatial distribution of multiple entity types, whereas economic development, science and technology investment, and fiscal support showed differentiated relationships across entity types and regions. (5) The MGWR results further reveal spatial heterogeneity in the effects of driving factors. These findings provide empirical evidence for type-specific cultivation and differentiated policy support for NABEs in major grain-producing areas.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071108

Authors: Haoxin Ni Hongling Tian

Typhoon-induced landslides in coastal mountainous regions are controlled by the coupled effects of rainfall, wind, topography, and storm-track geometry. However, conventional static susceptibility models have limited ability to represent event-scale forcing under extreme weather conditions. This study develops a physics-guided dynamic landslide susceptibility framework and retrospectively applies it to the 2017 Tropical Cyclone Cempaka event in Pacitan Regency, Indonesia, where 743 landslides were identified. The framework integrates static terrain factors, antecedent wetness, event-scale rainfall accumulation and intensity, maximum wind speed, and a typhoon geometric exposure index derived from IBTrACS best-track information that represents track proximity, topographic shielding, rainfall-favored quadrant effects, and storm-motion effects. Under spatial block cross-validation, model performance improved progressively from the static baseline to the full-factor model, with the receiver operating characteristic area under the curve (ROC-AUC) increasing from 0.648 to 0.751, the precision–recall area under the curve (PR-AUC) reaching 0.826, and the F1-score reaching 0.744. The full-factor model also reduced missed landslide cases from 328 to 205 and concentrated predicted high-susceptibility zones along the typhoon exposure corridor. Additional parameter-sensitivity analyses further indicate that the event-based Egeo setting produced positive performance increments under the event-consistent quadrant convention. These results indicate that physically meaningful typhoon-exposure information can improve the spatial discrimination and interpretability of event-scale landslide susceptibility assessment.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071109

Authors: Shuting Guo Li Wang

Plastic-covered greenhouses (PCGs) are an important form of intensive agricultural land use, but their long-term spatial dynamics are difficult to summarize from annual maps alone. This study mapped PCGs in Weifang, China, from 2016 to 2025 using Sentinel-2 imagery processed in Google Earth Engine. A Random Forest model trained with pooled multi-year samples was used to generate annual probability maps, which were converted to binary maps using a fixed threshold (T = 0.45) to improve cross-year comparability. Pixel-wise annual sequences were then summarized into four process classes: stable, gain, loss, and flip. These process classes, together with annual greenhouse coverage, were aggregated to a 16 km2 hexagon grid. Current coverage, long-term change, and process composition were further combined to produce an exploratory rule-based zoning interpretation. Independent year-specific validation showed overall accuracies of 0.969–0.983 and Kappa values of 0.740–0.841. Greenhouse precision remained high, while recall was lower, indicating a conservative detection tendency. From 2016 to 2025, mapped greenhouse area increased by 21.3%, reaching 752 km2. Shouguang, Qingzhou, and Changle accounted for 77.7% of the 2025 total. The results show a persistent high-intensity core and more dynamic marginal areas, providing spatial evidence for differentiated monitoring and targeted verification.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071107

Authors: Shoaib Ahmed Wagan Qurat Ul Ain Memon Congxi Li Yanwen Tan Erum Khushnood Muhammad Kashan Surahio

Banana production plays a vital role in food security and livelihood in developing countries, yet scholarly attention has highlighted the growing attention on climate change, CO2 emissions, and land dynamic impacts on agricultural production; however, empirical evidence on short- and long-term effects of climate change and CO2 emissions on banana production in China remains limited. This study employed the autoregressive distributed lag error correction model (ARDL-ECM) framework using time-series data from China over three decades spanning 1991–2023, to investigate the long-run, short-run effects of CO2 emissions, precipitation, temperature, and production inputs of land and labor on banana production. The empirical results indicate that the CO2 emissions exert a significant and negative long-run effect on banana production. Precipitation exhibited a positive influence on banana production in China. Banana-harvested area presents a positive and significant impact on banana production, underscoring the importance of land management for long-run growth of banana production. Findings demonstrate that greater resilience, supported by advanced technology, a mechanized production system, and stronger institutional capacity, reduces climate impact on banana production. Study findings contribute to the empirical evidence to the climate–agriculture nexus in China and offer actionable policy for enhancing banana resilience in developing countries.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15071106

Authors: Chengyue Hu Yonghu Fu Xiaoman Qi Xiaotong Qi Qiyuan Wang Li Li

In the context of global climate change and China’s dual-carbon strategy, this analysis examines how land-use transition is associated with land-use carbon effects in China’s resource-based cities. From the perspective of urban development stages, an analytical framework is built by linking development stage, land-use structure, and carbon source–sink structure. Using 262 resource-based cities from 2011 to 2023, we estimate land-use-related carbon emissions, carbon sequestration, and net land-use carbon effects with the carbon emission coefficient method and analyze their spatiotemporal patterns and driving factors using GeoDetector. The results show clear differences among city types. Mature cities form the largest group. Growth cities show the fastest expansion of impervious surfaces, while regenerative cities present signs of ecological recovery. This suggests that land-use transition is not simply the expansion of impervious surfaces, but a stage-dependent process of structural change. Land-use carbon effects also differ across stages. Mature cities maintain high and stable carbon-source effects. Growth cities exhibit increasing carbon-source effects, declining cities show reduced emissions but limited improvement in the carbon source–sink structure, and regenerative cities show improved carbon-sink capacity under ecological restoration. Overall, net land-use carbon effects follow a rise–decline–rebound pattern and show clear spatial heterogeneity and visually apparent clustering patterns. Population size has strong explanatory power, while interactions between socioeconomic and land-use factors further shape spatial differences. These results support stage-specific low-carbon transition strategies.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061105

Authors: Xinran Gao Guoxu Chen Li’ao Quan Xincheng Gao Jianxin Zhang Yongqi Fan

With the advancement of systematic ecological protection and restoration, ecosystem coordination assessment and multi-scale differentiation analysis have become increasingly important for regional ecological governance. In this context, this study develops a multi-scale coupling coordination evaluation framework for the mountain–water–forest–farmland–lake (MWFFL) system in Dangtu County, Anhui Province. The framework integrates 14 indicators across five subsystems, uses a combined weighting method based on the Entropy Weight Method and Analytic Hierarchy Process, and applies the coupling coordination degree (CCD) model and trend analysis to characterize inter-system coordination and its spatiotemporal patterns at the regional and ecosystem scales. The results indicate that land use is dominated by arable land, with water bodies forming the structural backbone and construction land distributed in clusters. From 2020 to 2024, the mean CCD remained stable around 0.675, indicating that the overall coupling coordination level was relatively stable. Spatially, the CCD pattern remained higher in the southwest and lower in the northwest, with a new high-value clustering zone emerging in the south. At the ecosystem scale, the four ecological restoration units showed distinct spatiotemporal patterns of coupling coordination. This multi-scale MWFFL evaluation framework supports regional ecological monitoring and provides a reference for restoration effectiveness assessment in similar regions under the life community concept.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061104

Authors: Yuanyuan Qu Qinxuan Wu Junfeng Wang Yuanrong Wu Xuexuan Xu

Current climate change has led to significant changes in precipitation patterns in the Loess Hilly Region, resulting in frequent extreme rainfall events, which have a significant impact on restoring the soil hydrological function of grasslands in this area. This study focuses on the restoration of grasslands through the conversion of farmland in the Loess Hilly Region. Using natural rainfall as the control, seven precipitation gradient treatments were established with rainout shelters: +20%, +40%, and +60% rainfall increases, and −20%, −40%, and −60% rainfall decreases. The changes in infiltration characteristics were then analyzed. Long-term increased rainfall promoted vegetation restoration and improved soil physicochemical properties. Compared with the natural rainfall control, the +20%, +40%, and +60% rainfall increase treatments enhanced the total porosity of the 0–5 cm soil layer by 0.29%, 4.64%, and 3.18%, respectively, and increased the soil organic carbon content by 28.42%, 62.46%, and 63.16%, respectively. Soil infiltration rate was also enhanced accordingly. Relative to the steady-state infiltration rate of the control (4.76 mm/min), the +20%, +40%, and +60% treatments increased the rate by 1.13%, 16.67%, and 22.54%, respectively, with the +60% treatment achieving the highest steady-state infiltration rate of 5.83 mm/min. The macroaggregate content in the +40% treatment was 47.70%, which was significantly higher than that in the other treatments. The increase in infiltration was related to the increase in total porosity, organic carbon, and the content and stability of large aggregates. Moderate rainfall increases can promote organic carbon accumulation and the formation of large aggregates, enhancing soil infiltration capacity; however, rainfall intensities exceeding 60% can damage the soil structure, and infiltration no longer significantly increases.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061103

Authors: Kexin Zhang Jingya Lin Yimiao Kong Ke Wang

The aesthetic value of agricultural landscapes is gaining importance as rural tourism burgeons during urbanization. To ascertain key elements influencing the visual appeal of agricultural landscapes, this research employed a visual choice experiment in Hangzhou Plain during the spring flowering period to assess public preferences for four landscape attributes in ground and aerial perspectives. The mixed logit model was utilized to evaluate the respondents’ average preference, while the latent class logit model helped in identifying distinct preference groups. The research revealed that participants exhibited different preferences between the two perspectives. The diversity within public preferences was highlighted, with respondents favoring oilseed rape-dominated landscapes with a single agricultural land cover proportion in ground perspective while favoring diverse landscapes in aerial perspective. Gender, education level, landscape familiarity, connection to agriculture, and membership in relevant organizations significantly shape individual preferences. These results can help refine multi-objective policy targeting by incorporating aesthetic value perspective in agricultural landscapes.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061102

Authors: Yuqin Chen Xi Luo Xuefei Ma

Against the backdrop of China’s urban modernization pathway, the core value of urban innovation systems is increasingly shifting toward an inclusive orientation. Grounded in the theoretical connotation of inclusive urban innovation, this study establishes an evaluation index system covering equal participation opportunities, procedural fairness, and outcome sharing, and applies the entropy method, kernel density analysis, and spatial autocorrelation to empirically examine the spatial distribution characteristics and formation mechanisms of inclusive innovation spaces in Changsha. The results show that (1) Changsha’s inclusive innovation level presents a gradient decline from the central urban area to the periphery; (2) high–high clusters mainly in areas with stronger innovation–resource concentration and better public service conditions, such as Yuelu District and other districts associated with major innovation platforms. Low–low agglomeration zones cluster in peripheral urban areas like certain townships in Liuyang City and remote regions of Ningxiang City; (3) the spatial differentiation of inclusive innovation is jointly shaped by multiple factors, among which Cultural Education and Industrial Structure show relatively stronger explanatory power; and (4) improving inclusive innovation requires enhancing not only innovation agglomeration, but also public service accessibility, talent support, employment inclusion, and the local sharing of innovation outcomes. This study provides a systematic framework for evaluating urban inclusive innovation space and offers policy insights for promoting balanced and inclusive innovation development in regional innovation cities.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061101

Authors: Jie Zou Qiyu Wang Dongxue Liu Jianli Ding Yingyu Xue Liu Yang Jian Ma

Quantifying vegetation ecological quality and ecological water requirement is essential for understanding ecosystem sustainability in arid regions. However, large-scale assessments of vegetation ecological quality and ecological water requirement thresholds remain limited in Central Asia. In this study, we developed a Vegetation Ecological Quality Index (VEQI) for Central Asia based on fractional vegetation cover (FVC) and net primary productivity (NPP) and estimated vegetation ecological water requirement quota (VEWRq) and total vegetation ecological water requirement (VEWR) using the Penman–Monteith method, the soil moisture limitation coefficient (SMLC), and GIS-based spatial analysis. We further examined the spatiotemporal variations in VEQI and VEWR during 2001–2020 and identified VEWRq thresholds corresponding to different VEQI levels. The results showed that (1) the multi-year mean VEQI in Central Asia was 28.46 and exhibited a slight increasing trend during 2001–2020; (2) the annual mean minimum, maximum, and optimal VEWRq were 147.53, 179.71, and 162.52 mm, respectively, corresponding to mean annual VEWR values of 146.98 × 109 m3, 179.04 × 109 m3 and 161.91 × 109 m3, respectively; and (3) VEQI was positively correlated with VEWRq in 89.48% of the vegetation area. The VEWRq threshold increased with vegetation ecological quality. The five VEQI levels in Central Asia, namely very poor, poor, moderate, good, and very good, corresponded to VEWRq thresholds of 28.62–35.96, 88.33–107.81, 190.69–233.32, 362.86–432.81, and 678.59–838.31 mm, respectively. This study provides a remote sensing-based framework for evaluating vegetation ecological quality and quantifying ecological water requirement thresholds in arid regions and offers scientific support for regional ecological management and water resource allocation.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061100

Authors: Xinmiao Wang Jie Chen

Legal regulation and market-oriented land property rights reforms have long been the mainstream, whereas the role of cultural embeddedness in driving land institutional innovation remains insufficiently explored. This paper develops an analytical framework that integrates institutional logics perspective with cultural embeddedness theory to examine the formation mechanism of homestead institutional innovation through a single-case study. Specifically, this study investigates a tripartite cost-sharing institution of homestead construction, involving the village enterprise, the village collective, and households in M Village, China. In this case, the findings reveal that the collectivist culture plays a facilitative role in institutional innovation of homestead land. First, institutional logics evolved in response to spatial resource constraints, thereby generating the demand for homestead institutional innovation. Second, through cultural embeddedness, institutional logics focus actors’ attention and reshape leadership identity, common goals, and collective action schemas. These processes facilitate decision making, sensemaking, and collective mobilization, thereby activating the formation of homestead institutional innovation. Third, the evolution of collectivist culture enhances the compatibility among multiple institutional logics, including those associated with the state, corporate, community, family, and professional actors. This compatibility consolidates the leadership identity of village elites, routinizes collective action, and ensures benefit sharing, thereby stabilizing homestead institutional innovation. The study suggests that integrating local culture with formal institutional regulations, as well as combining top-down rules with bottom-up practices, can effectively promote institutional innovation in homestead land governance.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061099

Authors: Eleni Kyriakidou Nikolaos Karanikolas Eleni Athanasouli Dimitris Kourkouridis Agapi Xifilidou

Major infrastructure investments alter accessibility and urban development patterns, yet their impact on housing prices varies significantly across regions. The prevailing interpretation attributes this heterogeneity to supply differences or regulatory constraints, treating land use regulations as exogenous variables. Nevertheless, even two regions with a nominally similar regulatory framework may produce substantially different outcomes in the housing market, depending on the effectiveness of rule implementation. This paper argues that this approach overlooks a critical variable: the ability of regional authorities to coordinate, regulate, permit, and implement spatial development in a predictable and timely manner. In line with this, a conceptual framework is developed, grounded in the literature on spatial and multi-level governance, in which regional institutional capacity is proposed as a potential mediator of capitalization around project milestones (announcement, funding, construction, operation), rather than as a backdrop. This capacity shapes outcomes through three interrelated dimensions: the responsiveness of supply, which depends on administrative capacity and regulatory consistency; the coherence of governance across jurisdictions within functional urban areas; and the management of land value through land value capture instruments. From this framework, testable propositions are derived regarding the intensity, timing, and spatial distribution of price effects. The study does not empirically estimate changes in housing prices, nor does it test the propositions put forward. Instead, it develops the conceptual framework and organizes the spatial and institutional units of observation required for a subsequent empirical test. The framework is specified spatially through Section A, Line 4 of the Athens Metro to organize the project’s spatial units, administrative jurisdictions, land uses, and milestones for future analysis. The contribution is threefold: conceptual, as it elevates regional institutional capacity from a contextual to an explanatory variable; theoretical, in that it bridges urban economics with the governance literature; and policy-relevant, since it repositions the reform of regional governance as a constituent element of housing policy and as a factor that may shape sustainable spatial development outcomes.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061098

Authors: Hui Chen Tianlang Sheng Junqi Yang Feng Guo Guopan Liu Gaoru Zhu Yi Li Yanan Yuan

Transportation hub cities serve as pivotal nodes within integrated transport systems. This study reveals the corridor-oriented characteristics of comprehensive transportation system, confirms the progress of its transportation hub city development, and identifies future improvement directions based on diagnostic evaluation, taking Gansu Province, China as the research subject. To address hierarchical differentiation and structural constraints in the development of integrated transportation hubs, this study develops an evaluation framework integrating the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method, a coupling coordination model, and indicator-based diagnostic analysis. This framework was applied to 14 prefecture-level cities and autonomous prefectures in Gansu, classifying them into four hub tiers according to the comprehensive evaluation index. The results reveal a pronounced hierarchical and corridor-oriented spatial structure: Lanzhou is identified as the only Tier 1 core hub, five cities are classified as Tier 2 backbone hubs, seven cities and prefectures as Tier 3 general hubs, and Pingliang as Tier 4 terminal hub. Lanzhou exhibits the highest development level, with a comprehensive evaluation index of 0.9640, which is substantially higher than the provincial mean of 0.3867, but its radiation-driving capacity still needs to be strengthened. In terms of subsystem coordination, Lanzhou reaches the primary coordination stage with a coupling coordination degree of 0.532, while Jiuquan, Jiayuguan, and Tianshui are classified into the near-coordination stage with D values of 0.353, 0.351, and 0.321, respectively; the remaining ten units are classified as uncoordinated relatively. Based on the combined perspectives of development level and subsystem coordination, the study identifies future development directions for hub operational organization, multimodal transport integration, feeder connectivity, and industry-logistics coupling. The findings reveal the corridor-oriented characteristics and development progress of Gansu’s transportation hub system, highlight the analytical value of distinguishing hub development level from subsystem coordination, and provide empirical evidence for understanding hierarchical and functional differentiation in corridor-oriented inland regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061097

Authors: Hui Li Jiaheng Du Wanqi Guo Qing Xu Jinli Zhu Zhenzhou Xu Wei Gao

The rapid development of high-density cities has triggered severe ecological challenges, including habitat fragmentation, urban heat island (UHI) effects, and conflicting demands for public recreation. Traditional ecological networks (ENs) often focus only on “source” landscapes while neglecting degraded “sink” areas. This bias limits the ability of planners to resolve complex spatial conflicts. Therefore, the primary aim of this study is to develop a robust spatial planning framework that mitigates urban ecological conflicts and enhances regional resilience. To achieve this, we constructed a composite ecological network (CEN) for the high-density city of Guangzhou that harmonizes bird habitat conservation, thermal regulation, and cultural recreation. We combined the MaxEnt model, morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA), and circuit theory to identify functional “sources” and “sinks” across these three dimensions. Next, using complex network theory, we optimized the CEN and evaluated its structural robustness using low degree addition (LDA) and low betweenness addition (LBA) strategies. The results indicate the following: (1) The CEN effectively captured the complex mosaic landscape of the city. (2) Single-objective networks displayed distinct spatial differences—the recreational network formed a dispersed web of 242 corridors, while habitat and climate networks remained highly clustered. (3) The integrated CEN generated 1137 multi-layered corridors, creating a vital green skeleton to support species dispersal, mitigate UHI effects, and improve cultural access. (4) Optimization simulations verified that the LBA strategy provided the highest stability against targeted attacks by balancing network connectivity with local aggregation. Ultimately, this framework offers a highly adaptable planning tool for dense cities, providing precise spatial guidance to overcome ecological bottlenecks and harmonize urban growth with ecosystem resilience.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061096

Authors: Zehong Gong Han Xiao Xing Wang Sen Chang

Cropland and rural settlements are core components of rural human–environment systems, and their coordinated development is crucial for regional sustainability, particularly in China’s major agricultural production regions. Taking the Huang-Huai-Hai region as the study area, this study systematically investigates the spatiotemporal evolution of cropland and its coupling relationship with rural settlements using land use data from 1990 to 2020. Grid-based analysis and multiple spatial modeling methods were employed. The results show that: (1) From 1990 to 2020, the cropland in the region decreased by a net total of 21,021.94 km2, with annual dynamic degrees ranging from −0.13% to −0.28%. Cropland conversion to other land uses far exceeded conversion from others, with construction land being the primary destination. Among these, rural settlements and urban construction land accounted for 43.75% and 55.58% of the total cropland loss, respectively. (2) The spatial distribution of cropland exhibited a distinct pattern of “hot in the center and south, cold in the periphery and north” (Moran’s I = 0.232, p < 0.001), indicating significant positive spatial autocorrelation. Hot spot areas clustered in the North China Plain and the Huang-Huai Plain, while cold spot areas were distributed in the Yanshan–Taihang mountains and the hilly regions of the Shandong Peninsula, clearly controlled by topography. (3) Cropland change exhibited stage-specific characteristics. The pattern was relatively stable during 1990–2000. During 2000–2010, cropland conversion to other uses intensified, with high-value conversion areas concentrated around urban agglomerations. In the 2010–2020 period, these high-value conversion areas diffused from the core plain areas to urban fringe zones. (4) The spatial coupling between cropland and rural settlements was predominantly characterized by the Moderately Coordinated Type (MCT), accounting for 48.38–58.44% of the area. However, the proportion of Rural Settlement-Dominant Type (RC) increased from 15.51% to 21.58%, indicating a trend toward intensifying human–environment conflicts. Overall, the Huang-Huai-Hai region experienced significant cropland changes. While its spatial pattern remains relatively stable, the coupling relationship between cropland and rural settlements is deteriorating, posing challenges to regional food security and rural sustainable development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061095

Authors: Amal H. Aljaddani

Accurate land use/land cover (LULC) mapping from remotely sensed data remains challenging in arid regions, particularly for spatial and seasonal generalization. This work proposes a novel exclude-one-city-out (EOCO) framework based on machine learning (ML) to achieve LULC generalization across summer and winter in arid environments. Four cities in Saudi Arabia witnessing rapid urban growth were selected: Riyadh, Madinah, Jeddah, and Dammam. The ML models were trained on three cities and tested on the unseen city. Sentinel-2 surface reflectance data for the visible (Blue, Green, and Red) and near-infrared bands (NIR, SWIR1, and SWIR2) were used. Spectral indices, texture features, and topographical data were used to form five feature sets, which were utilized as inputs for four ML algorithms: random forest, support vector machine, classification and regression trees, and K-nearest neighbors. Statistical tests (Friedman, Kendall’s W, and Wilcoxon signed rank) were conducted to assess differences across ML models, feature sets, and seasons. The random forest model consistently outperformed other models across the five feature sets, while the spectral texture and combined feature sets outperformed other feature combinations. Significant differences in feature importance were observed across cities and seasons for spectral texture during summer and winter (p-values: 1.25 × 10−4 and 9.2 × 10−5, respectively), with strong agreement (Kendall’s W = 0.9212 and 0.9424). The findings can support urban environmental monitoring in arid regions, contributing to sustainable urban development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061094

Authors: Kanokwalee Suteethorn Amna AlRuheili Sunantana Nuanla-or

Rapid urbanization, climate change, and biodiversity loss are intensifying environmental pressures on arid coastal cities through extreme heat, water scarcity, salinity intrusion, and increasing flood risks. Despite substantial investment in urban green spaces across the Gulf region, many public parks provide limited ecological functionality and climate adaptation benefits. This study evaluated the ecological performance of three coastal parks in Muscat, Oman Sarooj Beach Park (23,080 m2), Ghubrah Beach Park (34,818 m2), and Al Athaiba Beach Park (17,370 m2), to identify opportunities for more resilient landscape design. The assessment revealed that although green space occupied 76.8–82% of park areas, tree canopy cover remained low (8–12%), limiting thermal comfort, habitat provision, and ecological performance. Based on these findings, a Functional and Climate-Responsive Planting Strategy (FCRPS) was developed by integrating the 10–20–30 biodiversity guideline with performance-based planting criteria tailored to arid and saline environments. The framework was applied to the proposed Majis Beach Ecological Park in Sohar, Oman, to demonstrate the implementation of ecological urbanism and nature-based solutions in a hyper-arid coastal environment. The resulting design incorporates biodiversity-enhancing planting, blue–green infrastructure, wetland restoration, and climate-responsive spatial planning. The study demonstrates how multifunctional landscapes can enhance biodiversity, improve thermal comfort, strengthen stormwater management, and support community well-being while providing a transferable framework for resilient public park design in arid coastal cities.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061093

Authors: Kyriakos Chaleplis Avery Walters Venkataraman Lakshmi Alexandra Gemitzi

Wildfires are a major ecological disturbance in Mediterranean ecosystems, affecting vegetation dynamics and landscape resilience. However, the relative importance of environmental factors controlling post-fire vegetation recovery remains insufficiently quantified at regional scales. This study investigates the drivers of vegetation regeneration following 45 large wildfires (>1000 ha) that occurred across Greece between 2017 and 2023. Vegetation recovery was assessed using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series, while environmental predictors included burn severity metrics, soil moisture at four depth layers derived from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis 5-Land (ERA5-Land) climate reanalysis dataset, terrain characteristics (slope and aspect), land cover, and time since fire. All variables were harmonized at the fire-perimeter scale and analyzed using two complementary modeling approaches: multiple linear regression and artificial neural network (ANN) modeling. The linear regression model explained approximately 38% of the variability in vegetation recovery (R2 = 0.38), while the ANN showed improved predictive performance, indicating the presence of complex relationships among predictors. Across the applied modeling approaches, burn severity, topographic conditions, and soil moisture emerged as important drivers of post-fire vegetation recovery. In particular, Soil Moisture Layer 1 (SM1) showed the strongest positive association with NDVI recovery, followed by Soil Moisture Layer 4 (SM4), highlighting the importance of water availability for vegetation regeneration under post-fire conditions. Overall, the results confirm that vegetation recovery is strongly controlled by environmental conditions rather than time alone. The findings contribute to a better understanding of post-fire ecosystem dynamics in Mediterranean landscapes and provide a useful framework for supporting wildfire management and restoration planning.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061092

Authors: Belén García Malagón Luis Alfonso Hortelano Mínguez

Cities are currently facing increasing challenges related to climate change, demographic pressure, and urban expansion. In this context, urban resilience has emerged as a strategic approach to anticipate, withstand, and adapt to environmental and social disturbances. The city of Salamanca, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has implemented several green infrastructure strategies and climate adaptation initiatives, including the Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategy (EDUSI Tormes+), the Special Plan for the Protection of Green Infrastructure and Biodiversity (PEPIVB), and the programs SAVIA Red Verde Salamanca and LIFE Vía de la Plata. This study assesses the contribution of these initiatives to urban governance focused on response capacity by examining their level of implementation and the coherence among different municipal planning instruments. The analysis reveals that the municipal green infrastructure framework is explicitly planned and strategically designed with the objective to mitigate the urban heat island effect, regenerate the urban fabric, and establish structural pathways targeted to foster local biodiversity pathways. Overall, the results provide evidence that nature-based territorial management instruments can strengthen the adaptive capacity of heritage cities to climate change, offering a replicable model for other territories with similar characteristics.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061091

Authors: Gevorg Navasardyan Khachatur Meliksetian Lyuba Mirzoyan Edmond Grigoryan

The Arteni volcanic complex (Armenia) represents a distinctive volcanic landscape characterized by well-preserved pyroclastic deposits, rhyolitic domes, extensive obsidian flows, and significant archaeological evidence. This study aims to evaluate the geoheritage value of the complex and to develop a scientifically grounded geotouristic trail model based on the targeted selection of representative sites. Field-based investigations were integrated with a simplified semi-quantitative assessment of selected sites and Geographic Information System (GIS)-supported spatial analysis, including topographic, viewshed, and accessibility analyses. The results allowed for the selection of nine representative sites, effectively representing the principal stages of volcanic evolution, including explosive eruptions, lava flow emplacement, and dome formation. Spatial analysis demonstrates that the selected sites enable the development of a coherent, accessible, and scientifically meaningful geotouristic route while balancing scientific representativeness with visitor accessibility and safety. In addition, the widespread occurrence of obsidian and associated archaeological artifacts highlights the combined geological and cultural significance of the area. The proposed approach provides a transferable framework for the development of geotourism in volcanic regions and contributes to geoheritage conservation, geoeducation, and sustainable regional development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061090

Authors: Tangtang Yin Hong Ni Pengcheng Li Ran Duan Jinliu Chen

Building inclusive, high-density cities requires understanding vulnerable groups’ public space usage. While green exposure significantly impacts urban health, existing research frequently overlooks females’ specific needs regarding streetscape visual quality, green space structures, and daily travel experiences. To address this, the study investigates spatial disparities in Suzhou’s historic district. Utilizing multi-source data and mixed modeling strategies, including Partial Least Squares and Ordinary Least Squares (PLS-OLS) and eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), the research analyzes how streetscape perceptions and green space characteristics affect female life satisfaction and expressed sentiment. Results indicate three main findings. (1) Streetscape visual features fundamentally drive subjective evaluations. Safe significantly enhances well-being, whereas boring and lively negatively impact life satisfaction, reflecting females’ acute sensitivity to environmental oppressiveness during daily travel. (2) Park diversity elevates expressed sentiment, while patch density positively influences life satisfaction, demonstrating the vital value of fragmented greenery for daily public space usage. (3) Boring precipitously diminishes life satisfaction after surpassing a specific threshold, while park diversity elevates expressed sentiment only after crossing a critical interval. The study establishes an integrated analytical framework linking visual perception, green space structure, emotional response, and satisfaction. These findings provide targeted strategies for enhancing inclusive urban design and optimizing green space allocation to improve streetscape safety and alleviate visual oppressiveness, thereby advancing gender social justice for vulnerable groups in historic districts.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061089

Authors: Vasilis Lazaridis Dionysis Latinopoulos

Urban flood vulnerability is increasingly shaped by the interaction between climate change, urbanization, and spatial planning practices, particularly in Mediterranean metropolitan areas. This study develops an integrated GIS–AHP framework to assess the susceptibility component of flood vulnerability in the urban area of Thessaloniki, Greece. Using open-access geospatial data, ten indicators representing soil, hydrological, and environmental conditions are derived and spatially analyzed. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), based on expert judgment, is applied to estimate the relative importance of these indicators and to support their integration into a composite flood susceptibility index. The results reveal strong spatial heterogeneity, with high susceptibility concentrated in low-lying, densely urbanized areas and zones near drainage pathways. Among the examined factors, the Topographic Wetness Index emerges as the most influential, highlighting the persistent role of terrain-driven hydrological processes even in highly built environments. The proposed framework provides a transparent and transferable methodology for identifying flood-prone areas and supports evidence-based urban planning and climate resilience strategies. The findings contribute to the broader discussion on vulnerability and resilience in urban systems by linking spatial analysis with decision-support tools in a policy-relevant context.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061088

Authors: Xu Bi Kailong Shi Liqing Wu Yushuo Zhang Tao Lang Yongyong Fu

Accurate assessment of carbon storage dynamics and their driving factors is important for ecological sustainability and land management on the Loess Plateau under China’s dual carbon goals. In this study, the InVEST and PLUS models were integrated to evaluate carbon storage changes from 2000 to 2020 and simulate future carbon storage patterns for 2030 under four development scenarios, including natural development (ND), rapid development (RD), cropland protection (CP), and ecological protection (EP). In addition, the XGBoost-SHAP framework was employed to identify the dominant drivers and nonlinear response relationships controlling spatial variation in carbon storage. During 2000–2020, ecosystem carbon storage across the Loess Plateau generally increased, rising from 5.780 Pg to 5.893 Pg. Spatially, carbon storage displayed a pronounced pattern characterized by higher levels in the southeast and lower levels in the northwest, aligning with forest–grassland restoration belts. Scenario simulations showed that EP produced the largest carbon storage gain, with total carbon storage projected to reach 5.962 Pg in 2030. In contrast, RD reduced carbon storage to 5.858 Pg because of intensive construction land expansion. XGBoost-SHAP results identified net primary productivity (NPP) as the most influential factor controlling spatial variation in carbon storage, accounting for 57.3% of the total explanatory importance, whereas soil erosion (SE) exhibited a strong negative effect on carbon storage. Population density (POPD) also exerted a negative effect, whereas gross domestic product (GDP) showed positive contributions in economically developed counties. These findings enhance understanding of the spatial response characteristics of carbon storage under environmental gradients and human disturbance across the Loess Plateau. They further provide scientific support for differentiated ecological management and regionally adapted carbon mitigation planning.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061087

Authors: Jin Sun Dongmei Ma

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) embodies national memory. China has established a four-level ICH protection system covering national, provincial/autonomous regional, municipal, and county levels. The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region possesses abundant ICH resources formed by intensive cultural integration. However, existing studies have mostly focused on the national and provincial levels and paid insufficient attention to county-level ICH, which restricts detailed analysis of its spatial characteristics. Based on 1546 four-level ICH items, this study employs GIS spatial analysis and the geodetector method to investigate the spatial distribution characteristics and driving factors of ICH. The results indicate that ICH quantity is the highest in Yinchuan (372) and the lowest in Shizuishan (163). Traditional skills (763) are predominant, while Quyi (15) is the rarest. The imbalance index (s = 0.1553) and the geographic concentration index (G = 46.1) demonstrate that ICH is unevenly distributed and clustered at the municipal scale, showing a pattern of high density in the north and low density in the south. The Hui population (q = 0.5639), cultural industry employees (q = 0.4835), and annual precipitation (q = 0.3809) are the main driving factors, with significant multi-factor interactions. This research provides a theoretical reference and practical paradigm for balanced ICH protection and living heritage in Ningxia.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061086

Authors: Sirui Cheng Xuanyan Meng Xiaozi Ying Yueying Zhang Kefeng Jiao Ying Tang

Existing studies have paid limited attention to the spatial integration of cultural heritage resources in mountainous regions. To fill this gap, this study analyzes 1479 cultural heritage sites in the Qinling–Bashan Mountains. The kernel density analysis results reveal a spatial agglomeration pattern characterized by high-density clusters, medium- to low-density extensions, and scattered peripheral areas. This study integrates the cultural corridor spatial potential model (CCSPM), the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model to identify the potential diffusion range of cultural heritage and assess the suitability of cultural heritage corridor construction. On this basis, an integrated cultural heritage corridor pattern is proposed, featuring “one corridor, two belts, two cores, and six zones.” On this basis, this study proposes targeted conservation strategies for cultural heritage corridors from four perspectives: cultural–ecological synergistic protection, cross-regional collaborative governance, digital revitalization of rural cultural tourism, and socio-economic governance. Overall, this study contributes methodological support for the systematic conservation of mountainous cultural heritage and provides a practical reference for rural cultural revitalization and the sustainable utilization of heritage resources in China.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061085

Authors: Chunshan Zhou Shuyuan Liu Huiming Huang Xiong He Xiaodie Yuan

Against the backdrop of the transition of new-type urbanization towards high-quality development, the triple contradictions of population agglomeration, land constraints, and housing supply-demand imbalance have become increasingly prominent. The conventional binary framework of human–land relations can no longer meet the requirements of coordinated development within human settlement systems, creating an urgent need to examine the multi-system interactions among population, land, and housing in order to resolve spatial mismatch. Taking Guangzhou as a case study, this research integrates 2020 population census data, land-use data from the European Space Agency (ESA), housing-price data from the Anjuke platform, and multi-source data on related influencing factors, and conducts a systematic empirical analysis by combining coupling coordination analysis, a relative development model, and the geographical detector. The findings reveal that the coupling coordination level of population, land and housing in Guangzhou exhibits a concentric, ring-shaped distribution pattern with central agglomeration and peripheral decline. The relative development among the three systems can be classified into matching types including the core-differentiated type, the peripheral-imbalanced type, and the surrounding-equilibrium type. With respect to influencing factors, all pairwise interactions are of the bi-factor enhancement type, and the driving mechanism displays a three-stage dynamic evolution. This study enriches research on human–land relations, provides precise guidance for optimizing spatial allocation and alleviating housing mismatch conflicts in Guangzhou, and offers transferable practical experience for comparable cities in China seeking to advance the high-quality development of new-type urbanization.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061084

Authors: Ligang Wang Suqiong Li Kangwen Zhu Demei Zhao Dan Song Wei Huang Sheng Zhang Xiangyuan Su

Focusing on contrasting climate and land use pathways, this analysis explores the changing trajectories of water conservation function over time. An integrated framework combining the PLUS and InVEST models with Spearman’s correlation analysis and geographically weighted regression (GWR) was applied to examine the spatiotemporal heterogeneity and underlying drivers of water conservation function in the Chengdu–Chongqing Economic Zone during the period 2000–2020. Thus, it further predicted the evolution trend under two scenarios, namely SSP1-1.9 (Sustainable Development Pathway) and SSP2-4.5 (Medium Development Pathway), for the period 2030–2050. The findings reveal that: (1) Between 2000 and 2020, the spatial distribution of water conservation function shifted markedly, with low-value areas contracting and high-value zones expanding, alongside a progressive transition toward a predominantly medium-to-high functional structure. (2) In mountainous and hilly transition zones, precipitation (PRE) and forest cover proportion (FCP) exhibited notably positive effects, whereas evapotranspiration (PET) exerted a negative effect. In contrast, in plain and urbanized areas, built-up land proportion (BUP), population density (POP), and gross domestic product density (GDP) demonstrated pronounced negative effects. (3) Future simulations indicate that under the sustainable development pathway (SSP1-1.9), the combined area of high and extreme functional zones will recover by 2050, whereas under the moderate development pathway (SSP2-4.5), such extreme functional zones will be nearly eliminated. These results underscore the substantial impact of development pathways on regional water security and sustainability.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061083

Authors: Berfin Karabakan Gökhan Yelda Mert

Hatay experienced severe spatial, economic, and social losses following the earthquakes on 6 and 20 February 2023. Beyond the scale of physical destruction, the post-disaster period has brought deep transformations in everyday life, access to services, and the governance of space. This study examines the reconstruction process in Hatay from a perspective of just recovery and evaluates how the discourses of justice highlighted in policy documents are reflected in planning practice. Furthermore, the study offers empirical contributions on how justice is produced through spatial planning tools such as reserve area decisions, rubble management, expropriations, and access to services. Within the scope of the research, post-disaster policy documents, municipal reports, and media content were examined using qualitative content analysis, and the findings were supported by field-based spatial observations. The analyses show that, although the discourse of participation is frequently emphasized, it remains limited in decision-making processes; and issues related to the needs of vulnerable groups and equal access to services are more weakly represented. Spatial examples highlight the gap between normative discourses and practice through reserve area decisions, debris dumping management, and environmental risks. Overall, the study reveals that the principles of just recovery have been only partially implemented in the reconstruction process in Hatay, and that, for long-term resilience, participation, spatial equality, and the recognition of diverse lifestyles need to be strengthened at the institutional level.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061082

Authors: Fernando Fonseca Paulo J. G. Ribeiro

Urban and regional resilience has gained increasing relevance as cities and territories concentrate larger shares of population, economic activity, and exposure to various shocks. This study proposes an integrated framework to evaluate and compare territorial resilience across Northern Portugal, combining quantitative data from 42 indicators spanning five resilience dimensions. Municipal values for each indicator were classified into quintiles, converted into a standardized ranking scale from 1 to 5, and aggregated through GIS spatial operations to produce composite regional resilience maps. The results indicate that Northern Portugal displays moderate resilience, with pronounced spatial disparities. More urbanized and coastal municipalities tend to exhibit higher resilience levels than inland territories. Infrastructural resilience emerges as the weakest, while social resilience achieves the highest performance. By highlighting spatial inequalities and the dimensions requiring targeted intervention, this study offers actionable insights to support evidence-based policies aimed at strengthening territorial resilience in Northern Portugal.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061081

Authors: Georgia Gemenetzi Giancarlo Cotella Christophe Demazière Ioannis Pissourios

The paper conducts a comparative analysis of the flexibility of land-use planning systems in relation to four southern European countries: Cyprus, France, Greece and Italy. It examines how their respective institutional settings and legal frameworks allow for different levels of flexibility at different stages of the local land-use planning process. After analyzing the substance of the land-use planning system in each country—including constitutional and legal provisions, the degree of local autonomy, and the nature of land-use planning instruments—the paper explores the flexibility vs. rigidity dichotomy in the practice of land-use zoning across three dimensions. The first dimension relates to land-use regulations that allow for dynamic land-use changes and flexible zoning capable of better addressing urban challenges. The second dimension concerns the ease with which land-use plans can be updated to adapt to the changing needs. The third dimension deals with the process of development control over land uses. The results of the analysis display differential flexibility among the countries under investigation, which may be imputable to the nature of the legal framework and the different administrative and planning traditions. While no one-size-fits-all local spatial planning model exists, a set of good practices are presented that aim at balancing regulatory control with flexibility in urban land-use planning in different contexts.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061080

Authors: Chinmay Nischal Jagriti Gupta Shri Krishna Mishra Saurabh Singh Ram Avtar Fahdah Falah Ben Hasher Zoe Kanetaki Antreas Kantaros Mohamed Zhran

The rapid transition toward renewable energy requires transparent and spatially explicit methods for identifying suitable photovoltaic (PV) development areas. This study develops a geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) decision-support framework for PV site suitability assessment in Rajasthan, India. Eleven harmonized predictors were used: global horizontal irradiance (GHI), photovoltaic power output (PVOUT), temperature, wind speed, aerosol optical depth (AOD), elevation, slope, albedo, land use/land cover (LULC), distance to roads, and distance to power lines. Reference labels were generated from an explicit rule-derived suitability index, class thresholds, and exclusion logic; therefore, the machine-learning task was to reproduce a transparent suitability framework rather than to predict observed PV yield or project-level performance. Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) was compared with simpler baseline models, evaluated using random and spatial-block validation, and interpreted using SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP). Independent overlays with known solar-installation records, presence-background robustness testing, and uncertainty/sensitivity analysis were used to examine spatial plausibility, spatial autocorrelation, deterministic label effects, and parameter uncertainty. The resulting outputs include pixel-level suitability zones, contiguous candidate polygons, district-level capacity-oriented summaries, and planning-priority classes. The framework is intended as a risk-aware regional screening tool: high model agreement indicates consistency with the constructed suitability labels, while final project decisions require parcel-scale land, grid, environmental, social, and economic assessment.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061079

Authors: Mengdan Li Linke Hou Yanbin Wang Longwei Xin

This article examines whether Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs) help Chinese cities absorb local economic shocks or increase urban vulnerability. Focusing on consumption-side risk sharing, it defines urban resilience as the extent to which household consumption is insulated from city-specific output shocks, rather than as employment recovery, production rebound, or long-term adaptation. Using panel data for 283 prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2019, we test whether LGFV issuance weakens the transmission of idiosyncratic output fluctuations to local consumption. The results show that higher LGFV issuance is associated with a looser output–consumption linkage, suggesting a consumption-smoothing effect of debt-financed local intervention. Mechanism tests indicate that this effect operates mainly through wage growth, credit expansion, local output growth, and FDI growth, rather than direct welfare transfers. The relationship is stronger in cities with higher marketisation, lower policy uncertainty, and stronger fiscal capacity, while western cities display a distinct pattern. LGFVs appear more stabilising during relative growth slowdowns, but not under all weak growth conditions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061078

Authors: Maria Makri Athanassios Sfougaris

Agricultural intensification has simplified European agroecosystems, leading to biodiversity loss and altered ecosystem functioning. Within these landscapes, (semi)natural elements such as riparian zones may enhance biodiversity, yet the mechanisms linking habitat structure to functional diversity remain insufficiently understood. In this study, we investigated how landscape attributes and community-level processes jointly shape avian functional diversity in an intensively managed Mediterranean agricultural landscape in central Greece. Bird communities were surveyed at 60 sampling stations across riparian zones, green elements, and croplands. We quantified taxonomic and functional diversity using generalized linear models and examined direct and indirect relationships using piecewise structural equation modelling (SEM), complemented by variation partitioning and redundancy analysis. Riparian habitats supported significantly higher species richness and functional richness compared to croplands, with green elements showing intermediate values. However, functional dispersion (FDis) showed limited variation among habitat types. SEM results revealed that landscape variables influenced functional diversity primarily through indirect pathways, mediated by species richness, Shannon diversity, and functional richness. Variation partitioning further showed that functional dispersion was overwhelmingly explained by community-level attributes, with negligible independent contribution of landscape variables. These findings suggest that higher-order functional structure in bird communities is not directly associated with habitat configuration but is more strongly related to internal community organization. Our results highlight the importance of considering both taxonomic and functional dimensions, as well as indirect ecological pathways, when designing habitat management strategies aimed at sustaining biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in agricultural landscapes.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061077

Authors: Xu Li Qianxin Wang Yun Qiu Yifan Wu Juntao Tan Fangjie Cao

To address frequent street-level flooding, inadequate targeted management, and unbalanced cost-effectiveness in the old urban area, this study takes Yong’an Subdistrict in Quanshan District, Xuzhou, as a typical case, regards the street-level as its fundamental analytical unit and constructs a systematic “simulation–assessment–strategy” framework, focusing on evaluating and enhancing flood resilience in old urban districts. First, numerical simulation quantifies water depth under extreme rainfall to identify the flood risk spatial distribution. Second, a flood resilience assessment system is established based on the “exposure–vulnerability–adaptive capacity” framework, using the TOPSIS method to measure and grade street resilience. Finally, differentiated flood management strategies are proposed by integrating assessment results with regional characteristics. This study shows that high-risk flooding zones are clustered, with resilience results significantly correlated with the flood risk distribution. Low-resilience areas highly overlap with high-risk zones, mainly due to deficiencies in engineering, ecological, and social resilience. Accordingly, differentiated strategies—”pipe network upgrades + permeable paving”, “retention facilities + smart drainage”, and “micro-topography modifications”—are applied to old residential areas, core commercial districts, and new development peripheries. This approach balances management costs and effectiveness, providing theoretical and practical support for precise street-level flood management and spatial optimization in old urban districts.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061076

Authors: Isaú Alfredo B. Quissindo Achim Röder Manfred Finckh Marion Stellmes Virgínia Quartin Thomas Udelhoven

Land-use/cover change threatens the ecological integrity of the Miombo region of south-central Africa. In Angola, Miombo ecosystems are of high ecological and socio-economic importance, providing rural populations with woody and non-timber forest products. Fire plays an important role in regional agricultural and silvicultural land-use systems. This study contextualised Copernicus land-cover classes at the regional level to analyse LULC transition pathways and their association with fire occurrence in Central Angola. LULC change was assessed using a post-classification comparison approach combined with pixel-based trajectory analysis. Fire activity was analysed using MODIS-derived ignition points, burned-area data, and a hexagonal-grid aggregation approach. At the same time, spatial clustering was assessed using hot spot analysis based on the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic. Differences in mean fire size among LULC transition classes were tested using the Kruskal–Wallis test followed by Dunn’s post hoc test. The results indicate a gradual reduction in forest cover and conversion to Cultivated Land, associated with the expansion of agricultural frontiers and urban areas. Fire activity was highest in areas affected by LULC conversion, with seasonal patterns varying notably among classes. Mean fire size differed by more than two orders of magnitude among transition types. Overall, fire activity was strongly associated with areas undergoing land-cover transition, highlighting the need to integrate fire management into sustainable land-use policies for long-term Miombo conservation.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061075

Authors: Seung-Jun Lee Jisung Kim Hong-Sik Yun

The Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the global mean, driving unprecedented sea ice loss and threatening permafrost coasts and human settlements. Existing pan-Arctic vulnerability indices typically rest on satellite-era baselines and on expert-driven weighting schemes whose robustness is rarely tested. Here, we present an integrated, multi-centennial framework that jointly ingests SIBT1850 sea ice concentration (1850–2017), extended to 2024 with the NOAA/NSIDC Climate Data Record of Passive Microwave Sea Ice Concentration v6 (G02202 v6), together with ESA CCI Permafrost products (1997–2019), the Arctic Coastal Dynamics database, and pan-Arctic settlement inventories. Using non-parametric Mann–Kendall trend tests, Sen’s slope, and the Pettitt change point test across nine Seas (S1–S9), five permafrost-adjacent core seas exhibit summer Sen’s slopes of −0.105 to −0.185% yr−1 with Pettitt change points clustered in 1929–1953 (mean 1936), whereas three of four support seas cluster around 1978, suggesting an approximately bimodal regime shift timing that we interpret cautiously given the limited sample. A Composite Vulnerability Index integrating six normalised indicators identifies the Chukchi (CVI = 0.630) and East Siberian (0.624) seas as the highest-priority hotspots at the SIBT1850 baseline. A satellite-era robustness check using NSIDC G02202 v6 confirms that the Chukchi–East Siberian–Laptev corridor remains in the top three highest-vulnerability basins under the 1850–2024 extension, with the Beaufort Sea retaining rank 5, validating the basin mean conclusions of the SIBT1850-based analysis. Robustness checks—PCA re-weighting, one-at-a-time and global (Sobol, PAWN) sensitivity analyses, and Monte Carlo Dirichlet perturbation—confirm that the top-two ranking is stable across weighting schemes (baseline–PCA Spearman ρ = 0.80). We explicitly avoid claiming forecasting validation, operational testing, or benchmarking against existing pan-Arctic vulnerability indices, all of which we identify as priority directions for future work. The framework provides a transparent, reproducible basis for prioritising adaptation across the Chukchi–East Siberian–Laptev corridor.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061074

Authors: Emilia Janeczko Krzysztof Czyżyk Sławomir Murawiec Piotr Janeczko Zofia Słowik Kinga Kimic Małgorzata Woźnicka

Experiencing the forest landscape in its natural state is one of the factors that positively affect people, especially younger generations exposed to stress. The study assessed the impact of listening to nature sounds and observing forest landscapes on the mood and well-being of young adults exposed to a real forest environment. The experiment consisted of two sessions, allowing us to compare the regenerative effects of observing the forest with full engagement of the senses of sight and hearing, and by listening exclusively to the sounds of nature (birdsong, rustling leaves). The relaxation benefits were compared using psychological tests, including the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), Profile of Mood States (POMS), Restorative Outcome Scale (ROS), and Subjective Vitality Scale (SVS), administered before and after each exposure. The study involved 31 volunteers from Warsaw, the Polish capital (17 women and 14 men, with an average age of 25). A significant improvement in mood (as measured by the POMS) was observed, particularly through a reduction in Anger and Confusion. Both sessions (with and without a blindfold) significantly reduced negative affect (PANAS Negative) and increased restorative outcomes (ROS). However, no significant differences were found between full immersion (sight and hearing) and auditory-only exposure, suggesting that the acoustic layer of the forest environment plays a dominant role in the short-term psychological regeneration of young adults. In summary, these results suggest that both forms of exposure to nature have a relaxing effect on humans. However, full immersion, which involves being in the forest and viewing it, combined with listening to the sounds of nature, provides by far the most benefits for improving the well-being and mood of forest visitors.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061073

Authors: Chi-Ok Oh Bryan R. Oh

This study examines the visitor-demand impact of a government-funded payment for ecosystem services policy applied to cultural heritage sites. In May 2023, South Korea abolished cultural heritage visitation fees at national-park temples. This policy shift replaced a decades-long user-pay model with government compensation to temples, effectively transitioning to a government-funded PES framework. The reform aimed to resolve protracted social conflict over fee collection at trailheads serving both religious and recreational visitors. Utilizing monthly visitation data spanning January 2020 to December 2024 (N = 960 site-months), we employed a difference-in-differences design with propensity score matching to compare eight treated temple sites against eight matched controls. The results indicate that fee abolition produced a statistically significant average increase of approximately 14,229 monthly visitors per treated site. The results proved robust across five distinct model specifications, and event-study analysis confirmed that the parallel trends assumption was satisfied. These findings provide quasi-experimental evidence that removing price barriers at heritage sites substantially increases observed visitor demand, a necessary condition for enhanced public accessibility to cultural ecosystem services. Whether this demand increase translates into broader welfare gains, such as regional economic spillovers, improved visitor well-being, or long-term fiscal sustainability of the subsidy, remains an important question for future research.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061072

Authors: Yuqi Wei Lan Chen Qinglong Gao Chunhua Chen Ziyi Zhang

Metropolitan fringe villages are important interfaces where urban–rural factor flows, urban functional spillovers, and spatial restructuring converge. However, how spatial governance shapes the evolution of their territorial spatial patterns remains insufficiently explained. Taking Donglin Village in Chengdu, China, as a case study, this paper integrates field investigation, in-depth interviews, and remote-sensing image interpretation to examine the mechanisms and governance logic underlying the evolution of territorial spatial patterns in metropolitan fringe villages. The findings show that the spatial evolution of Donglin Village is not merely a process of land-use change, but a dynamic process characterized by the coordinated restructuring of material, functional, and social spatial patterns. Spatial governance operates through three interrelated mechanisms: element integration promotes the reorganization of spatial resources and the reshaping of material space; functional synergy facilitates rural multifunctional transformation and spatial value enhancement; and benefit sharing helps stabilize actor relationships and institutionalize the distribution of development gains. Policy and institutional arrangements do not constitute an independent mechanism, but instead provide boundary constraints, rule support, and implementation guarantees for the above mechanisms. The case of Donglin Village further demonstrates that spatial governance connects spatial restructuring, functional reorganization, and benefit coordination into a continuous process of territorial spatial optimization. This study clarifies the mechanisms through which spatial governance shapes the evolution of territorial spatial patterns in metropolitan fringe villages and provides implications for spatial optimization in similar villages under the context of urban–rural integrated development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061071

Authors: Catarina de Sousa Silva Simon Bell Lenka Lackóová Thomas Panagopoulos

Ensuring equitable access to urban green spaces is a major challenge in contemporary urban planning, with important implications for public health, well-being and environmental justice. However, comparative cross-city analyses based on harmonised methodologies remain limited, particularly across contrasting European climatic and morphological contexts. This study aims to: (i) assess the spatial distribution of public green spaces; (ii) evaluate neighbourhood-level accessibility and identify environmental justice inequalities; and (iii) examine how urban form and climatic context influence accessibility outcomes across the following three medium-sized European cities: Faro (Portugal), Tartu (Estonia) and Nitra (Slovakia). A GIS-based approach was applied using consistent criteria, including publicly accessible green spaces ≥ 1 ha, Euclidean buffers of 300 m and 500 m, and harmonised population data from the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL). Accessibility was quantified as the proportion of residents living within the defined walking-distance thresholds. The results reveal substantial inter- and intra-urban disparities. Tartu exhibits the highest green space provision (23.34 m2/inhabitant), while Faro presents the lowest (5.67 m2/inhabitant). However, accessibility patterns do not directly reflect provision levels: Faro achieves accessibility values at 500 m comparable to those of Tartu, whereas Nitra shows lower accessibility despite moderate provision. These findings demonstrate that accessibility is shaped primarily by the spatial configuration of green spaces rather than by overall provision alone. The study highlights the importance of integrating urban morphology and climatic context into environmental justice assessments and urban green infrastructure planning in order to reduce spatial inequalities in access to urban nature.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061070

Authors: Adila Adurhman Yu Wang Ali Mamtimin Yonghui Wang Hajigul Sayit Haotong Liu Jiacheng Gao Meiqi Song

Based on eddy covariance data collected during March to June 2021 in the Gurbantunggut Desert, this study analyzed desert methane (CH4) flux dynamics. Results show the following: (1) The desert functions as a weak methane sink from March to June in the growing season, with its CH4 flux showing a U-shaped diurnal variation pattern. The absorption peak occurred in June, reaching −79.1 mg·m−2·month−1. (2) Diurnally, CH4 flux correlated negatively with soil temperature (Tsoil), vapor pressure deficit, and photosynthetically active radiation (rTsoil = −0.58, rVPD = −0.49, rPAR = −0.49), positively with soil water content (SWC) and relative humidity (RH) (rRH = 0.53, rSWC = 0.28). (3) Fixed-effects regression isolated individual and interactive effects of SWC and Tsoil, yielding the model: CH4 = −0.002 − 0.017SWC − 0.00004Tsoil − 0.002(SWC × Tsoil). The model highlights CH4 flux sensitivity to hydrothermal factors and underscores the importance of their interaction for accurate flux estimation and understanding arid zone carbon cycle-climate feedbacks.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061069

Authors: Mei Zhang Yun Deng

Conservation tillage plays an important role in improving sustainable land use and maintaining food production. Using survey data from 261 agricultural producers in Heilongjiang Province, China, this study examines how conservation tillage policy mixes affect agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP). The slack-based measure (SBM) model incorporating undesirable outputs is employed to estimate AGTFP. A Tobit model with interaction terms is applied to analyze the independent and combined effects of three policy instruments: subsidies, regulations, and supporting services, and a mediating effect model is used to verify how these instruments work. The results indicate that: (1) the mean AGTFP value stands at 0.37, reflecting a generally low level of performance, with the largest improvement requirements observed in seed inputs (66.25%), machinery inputs (65.53%), and nitrogen emissions (61.55%); (2) subsidies, regulations, and supporting services all improve AGTFP, while the combinations of subsidies and services, regulations and services, and the full three-policy mix generate significant positive synergistic effects; (3) policy mixes facilitate AGTFP enhancement by increasing agricultural producers’ perceived value of conservation tillage technologies and reducing perceived risks. In particular, the interaction between regulations and supporting services significantly increased perceived value (β = 1.129, p < 0.01) and reduced perceived risk (β = −0.810, p < 0.01); (4) the effects of policy mixes are stronger for producers pursuing green production goals and for small-scale farmers. Based on these findings, the following recommendations are proposed: policy efforts should strengthen the coordination of subsidies, regulations, and services, linking training and inspection results to subsidy eligibility; address efficiency bottlenecks in seeds, machinery, labor, and nitrogen emissions; design differentiated policy packages for various farm types; and build a training system that includes at least two mandatory sessions per season and ties training outcomes to subsequent subsidies. This study contributes a policy mix perspective to the evaluation of AGTFP and provides empirical evidence for coordinated conservation tillage policy design.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061068

Authors: Feiyu Chen Xiaoyong Huang Zhi Li Hanchen Xie Yifei Wu

Extreme climate events have emerged as a critical threat to the economic resilience and environmental sustainability of urban systems. As a central pillar of the low-carbon transition, improvements in carbon emission efficiency (CEE) are increasingly recognized as a potential pathway to mitigate the occurrence and intensity of such events. Drawing on a balanced panel dataset of 163 cities from 2006 to 2022, this study integrates an Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) model augmented with SHAP (Shapley Additive Explanations) analysis and a Geographically and Temporally Weighted Regression (GTWR) framework to examine the nonlinear and spatially heterogeneous effects of CEE on the Climate Physical Risk Index (CPRI). The results reveal a distinct two-stage dynamic pattern, in which CEE initially exacerbates and subsequently mitigates climate risk, indicating a nonlinear transition from short-term intensification to long-term alleviation. This relationship shows clear differences across city levels and climate types. The strongest effects appear in peripheral cities and in areas with extreme rainfall dominance (ERD). Spatial analysis based on GTWR also shows a clear north–south pattern. The effect of CEE in reducing risk becomes stronger from the south to the north. Based on these results, the study suggests different land-use policy strategies for different city types and climate conditions. The results give actionable insights for designing targeted carbon governance policies. These policies aim to deal with the growing challenges caused by extreme climate events under ongoing climate change.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061067

Authors: Mengshuo Liu Yan Liu Yipeng Yao Lu Xia Haifeng Fu Xin Leng Shuqing An

Understanding the coordinated development of production, living, and ecological (P–L–E) functions is critical for sustainable watershed governance in rapidly transforming regions. Using the Chaohu Lake Basin, China, as a case study, this study developed a process–pattern–potential–driver framework for watershed-scale P–L–E coordination analysis from 2000 to 2020. Unlike previous studies that mainly assess coordination levels or map spatial patterns, this framework further identifies subsystem constraints, quantifies coordinated development potential, and determines key factors driving spatial differences. The results show that production and ecological functions remained weakly coordinated, indicating persistent tension between economic growth and ecological protection. In contrast, the relationships between production and living functions and between living and ecological functions improved from strong imbalance to moderate coordination. Spatially, higher coordination levels were concentrated in the southwestern basin. Decoupling analysis further reveals that production activities, especially the energy-intensive secondary industry, were the main constraint on ecological function. In addition, 88.2% of the basin showed an increasing trend in coordinated development potential. Land-use patterns, socioeconomic conditions, and eco-environmental quality were identified as direct drivers, whereas climate change mainly acted indirectly. By linking diagnostic results with spatially differentiated management needs, this study provides a basis for more targeted watershed governance.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061066

Authors: Dongdong Ge Menghan Wang Mande Zhu

In smallholder-dominated agricultural systems, farm expansion is often expected to improve agricultural performance, yet a larger operated area does not necessarily translate into higher returns per unit of land. This issue is particularly relevant in rice farming, where land fragmentation, labor constraints, and uneven access to agricultural services may limit the return-enhancing effect of farm-scale management (FSM). Using 2024 household survey data from 732 rice-farming households in Jiangxi Province, China, this study examines how FSM, service-scale management (SSM), and their organizational matching affect rice-farming returns (RFR). We apply ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models with interaction-term specifications and further conduct mechanism, moderation, and heterogeneity analyses. The results show that FSM alone does not automatically increase per-mu net operating returns, whereas SSM is positively associated with RFR. More importantly, the interaction between FSM and SSM is significantly positive, indicating that farm expansion generates return advantages mainly when supported by agricultural socialized services. Mechanism analysis suggests that this synergistic effect operates partly through higher land consolidation (LC) and more formalized service contractualization (SC), while smart agricultural technology (SAT) further strengthens the return-enhancing effect. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that the effect differs across farmers with different operating scales. These findings suggest that smallholder modernization should not be understood as land expansion alone but as the organizational matching between farm scale and the service-based division of labor. Policy efforts should therefore aim to improve agricultural socialized service systems, promote land consolidation, strengthen service contracts, and integrate smart agricultural technologies into service provision.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061065

Authors: Gabriele Scozzafava Tommaso Fantechi

Traditional olive groves are widely recognised as providers of landscape, environmental and cultural public goods in Mediterranean rural areas, but their long-term economic viability remains uncertain. This study assesses the income gap between traditional, intensive and super-high-density (SHD) olive-growing systems in a representative hill olive-growing area in Tuscany (central Italy), characterised by physical and structural conditions typical of traditional Mediterranean systems. Using a discounted cash-flow framework, the analysis compares long-term financial performance through standard investment appraisal indicators and uses the Equivalent Annual Value (EAV) as a policy-relevant benchmark for calibrating support. The results reveal a clear structural divergence: while intensive and SHD systems achieve higher profitability and faster capital recovery, the traditional system exhibits a persistent income disadvantage under market conditions. The estimated EAV gap amounts to approximately 950 €/ha relative to the intensive system and 3104 €/ha relative to the SHD system—values that represent the additional annual support required to preserve traditional olive groves and prevent abandonment. These values can also be interpreted as the annual private opportunity cost of maintaining traditional olive landscapes rather than converting them to more financially competitive systems. Break-even analysis further shows that the traditional system requires an oil price of at least 9.6 €/kg to achieve economic viability without public support, compared to 6.97 €/kg and 4.13 €/kg for the intensive and SHD systems, respectively. The findings highlight a structural misalignment between private profitability and social value, suggesting that the conservation of traditional olive landscapes cannot rely on market mechanisms alone and requires targeted, evidence-based policy instruments.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061064

Authors: Hedong Wang Xiaoyu Hu Yunpeng Xu Haoyu Hu Yuandong Zou Jianbao Huang Tianyu Zeng Yitong Chen Zhiyin Mo Di Shi Lina Wang Xinrui Yu Chunliu Luo

Understanding how ecological quality and human activity co-evolve in densely populated watersheds is essential for sustainable land management, yet spatially explicit long-term evidence remains limited. This study investigated the spatiotemporal dynamics and coupling coordination between ecological quality and multi-dimensional human activity intensity in the Huai River Basin (approximately 269,000 km2) from 2012 to 2024. An Improved Remote Sensing Ecological Index (IRSEI) was constructed by integrating EVI, wetness, dryness, land surface temperature, and a salinity index through annual principal component analysis. A composite Human Activity Intensity (HAI) index combining nighttime light, built-up intensity, and population density was derived with objectively determined weights. The coupling coordination degree (CCD) model and a pixel-level four-quadrant classification were then applied to characterize the human–environment interaction. Results showed that the basin-wide mean IRSEI declined from 0.564 in 2012 to 0.516 in 2020, before recovering to 0.566 in 2024, while HAI increased moderately by 16.9%. CCD improved slightly from 0.451 to 0.480, indicating limited but positive coordination gains. Four-quadrant transitions revealed that high-ecology, low-activity areas expanded, low-ecology, low-activity areas contracted, whereas low-ecology, high-activity zones persisted as stable pressure cores. These findings demonstrate that ecological recovery and human activity intensification can coexist spatially, but persistent high-pressure areas require targeted management interventions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061063

Authors: Alessia Corami Alessandro Coccia Silvano Mignardi

Soil contamination by heavy metals (HMs) [or potential toxic elements (PTEs)] poses serious risks to ecosystems and human health. Metals persist in the environment and can reach groundwater and freshwater as part of the food-chain. In soils, anthropogenic inputs dominate over geogenic sources. Metal mobility is strongly controlled by factors such as pH, mineralogy, and erosion processes that transport metal-bearing clay fractions. Wind and water can transport soil, mainly clay particles that can usually bind contaminants such as HMs. Using waste material is a tool suggested from the circular economy, so waste becomes a valuable resource. This study evaluates the immobilization efficiency of several heavy metals (Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn) using phosphate amendments—synthetic hydroxyapatite, phosphatic rock from Florida and Morocco—applied to a brownfield site. Heavy metal immobilization followed a two-step mechanism: first rapid surface complexation and secondly partial dissolution of hydroxyapatite and ion exchange with Ca, leading to the precipitation of metal-substituted hydroxyapatite phases. Synthetic hydroxyapatite generally shows the best efficiency, whereas phosphatic rocks were less effective but still provided a measurable immobilization. From a circular economy perspective, however, phosphatic rocks remain attractive due to their lower cost, availability, and waste-valorization potential.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061062

Authors: Redong Zhang Lele Yuan Qingtao Zhu Wenjing Sun Suolang Baimu

In the context of intensifying global climate change, high-altitude mountain ecosystems play a critical role in climate regulation, biodiversity conservation, and the advancement of sustainable human development. Plateau regions, such as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, are particularly sensitive and responsive to global climatic fluctuations and function as essential ecological barriers supporting development across Asia. These areas occupy a strategic position within Asia’s ecological security framework and the broader international community, influencing not only regional ecological stability and social cohesion but also sustainable development pathways. However, owing to their fragile ecosystem structures, limited regenerative capacity, and the ongoing expansion of urbanisation and human activities, these regions frequently suffer from habitat fragmentation and degradation of ecological functions. This issue is especially acute in natural protected areas adjacent to plateau cities. Consequently, there is an urgent need for quantitative assessments of ecological restoration effectiveness within natural protected areas, alongside investigations into development approaches that underpin long-term regional stability and sustainability. Focusing on Chokpori Mountain—the “urban green heart” of Lhasa, a principal city on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau—this study develops a three-dimensional assessment framework encompassing ecological, economic, and social dimensions. By integrating the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model, remote sensing inversion techniques, field monitoring, and questionnaire surveys, the research systematically evaluates the effectiveness of ecological restoration and proposes insights for sustainable governance. The findings indicate that ecological restoration elicited positive ecological responses, evidenced by a 69.2% increase in soil retention post-renovation, an increase in vegetation coverage, and modeled total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) export loads demonstrating enhanced nutrient retention potential and improved water purification potential; (2) economic stimulation was evident, as demonstrated by an increase in average weekend daily visitor numbers from 876 to 1567 and a 24.2% rise in average monthly revenue of shops within a 1 km radius; and (3) social well-being improved, with ecological satisfaction reaching 89.2% and recognition of cultural communication attaining 67.3%. An integrated analysis indicates a synergistic enhancement of ecological environmental quality, regional vitality, and public perception. Accordingly, the outcomes of this study provide both theoretical insights and practical guidance for the ecological restoration and sustainable management of urban protected areas in high-altitude plateau regions worldwide.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061061

Authors: Feifan Li Xinyu Li Minjie Duan Jiale Li Moran Cai

Ecological zoning is important for understanding spatial heterogeneity and supporting landscape-level management. However, existing approaches rarely integrate ecosystem service supply with ecological risk, and their underlying nonlinear relationships remain insufficiently explored. This study aims to develop an integrated framework linking ecosystem service value (ESV) and landscape ecological risk (LER) based on a two-dimensional quadrant model. This framework integrates ESV and LER from complementary benefit–risk perspectives, advancing ecological zoning beyond single-indicator approaches. Using the Miyun Reservoir Basin as a case study, multi-source data from 2000 to 2020 were used to quantify ESV and LER and to examine their spatiotemporal dynamics. The ESV-LER framework was applied to identify ecological functional zones. In addition, the XGBoost-SHAP model combined with the Geographical Detector was used to explore the nonlinear effects and interactions of natural and anthropogenic drivers. ESV showed a “decline-recovery” trend, whereas LER exhibited an opposite “decrease-increase” pattern. Areas with both high ESV and high LER were mainly distributed around the reservoir and river networks, suggesting a spatial mismatch between ecological value and risk. Ecological improvement and conservation zones accounted for approximately 79% of the basin, while ecological risk prevention zones expanded over time, indicating increasing human disturbance. NDVI was identified as a dominant factor with dual effects, enhancing ESV while reducing LER, whereas population density and NPP exhibited nonlinear threshold effects that increased ecological risk. Overall, this study advances ecological zoning by integrating functional value and risk perspectives while explicitly revealing their nonlinear drivers. The proposed framework provides a transferable and interpretable approach for watershed-scale ecological management and supports more targeted and differentiated governance strategies.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15061060

Authors: Chenhao Fang Chuanpin Wang Youhai Zeng Binyan Wang Yunyan Li

Weekday commuting and weekend recreation are two mobility domains through which urban spatial structure shapes residents’ well-being and urban functioning, yet direct empirical evidence on how they are related remains limited. This study investigates how weekday commuting costs and weekend recreational mobility conditions are related within a jobs–housing–recreation spatial framework, using individual-level location-based services (LBS) data from the central urban area of Chongqing, China. Generalized additive models reveal a nonlinear and range-dependent commuting–recreation relationship. Distance-based and driving-time specifications provide the main evidence for a U-shaped relationship, whereas transit-time specifications do not clearly reproduce this pattern, reflecting short-distance cost overestimation and spatially shared public-transport constraints rather than realised mobility conditions. From a spatial-configuration perspective, this pattern suggests that work-related and recreational mobility conditions are unevenly combined across residential locations, rather than simply aligned or opposed. It also suggests that relatively favourable commuting and recreational mobility conditions can coexist within some residential contexts. Rather than establishing a universal rule, the Chongqing case provides a testable hypothesis that may be relevant to large cities with uneven and partially aligned employment, housing, transport, and recreational opportunities. The study provides an empirical entry point for integrated spatial-performance diagnosis and future evaluation of alternative jobs–housing–recreation configurations.