Land doi: 10.3390/land15091646

Authors: Claudia Camplone Luisa Paolotti Francesco Romagnoli Sara Allahverdiveva Renzo Santi Lorenzo Covarelli Lucia Rocchi

The growing demand for food is placing growing pressure on agricultural systems, raising concerns about their environmental sustainability. In this context, precision agriculture represents a promising approach for improving resource-use efficiency while maintaining high yields. This study aimed to assess the environmental performance of soft wheat production during the transition from conventional to smart and precision farming under real farm conditions. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was conducted following ISO 14040 and 14044 standards using primary data collected from a farm located in Umbria (Italy). Two consecutive three-year production periods were compared: conventional farming (2019–2021) and smart and precision farming (2022–2024). Environmental impacts were assessed using the Environmental Footprint 3.1 method. The transition was associated with a 20.8% reduction in the overall environmental impact. This improvement reflects the combined effects of adopting smart and precision agriculture technologies together with the renewal of farm machinery, which results in lower fuel consumption and more efficient fertilizer and pesticide management. Most impact categories showed improvements, particularly climate change, ecotoxicity, and particulate matter. However, freshwater eutrophication increased due to changes in fertilization strategy, including reduced nitrogen fertilizer use and increased phosphorus fertilizer application. Sensitivity analyses confirmed the consistency of the results; despite some influence on yield variation, the overall comparison remained consistent under the tested scenarios. These findings highlight the potential of smart and precision agriculture to improve the environmental sustainability of soft wheat production under real farm conditions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091645

Authors: Feifei Sheng Jianjun Yang Ziqi Tian Huiling Cheng Alimira Alimu Zhe Hao Hasigerili Xianming De

Abandoned sand mining sites in arid regions are characterized by slow vegetation recovery and extensive bare-surface exposure, making it difficult to evaluate restoration outcomes using vegetation-based or conventional engineering indicators alone. More importantly, reference-based terrain assessment requires reliable natural benchmarks; otherwise, terrain similarity may be misinterpreted when candidate reference areas have been modified by human activities. This study developed a reference-based terrain coordination evaluation framework using high-resolution UAV-derived DEMs for three historical abandoned sand mining sites in the Aksu region, northwestern China. Candidate reference units were first screened using a 30 m DEM based on area, mean slope, and slope variability, and were then verified using 0.1 m UAV orthomosaics and DEM-derived hillshade maps. Surface roughness, local topographic relief, and mean absolute curvature were extracted to quantify terrain similarity between restored areas and verified natural reference units, and DEM-resolution sensitivity was further assessed.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091644

Authors: Mengyuan Zhang Shengyan Xu Yue Wu Tianyu Yang

Waste accumulation and land carrying pressure are common sustainability challenges in urbanization, making the improvement of urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE) a key issue. Using panel data from 278 Chinese cities over 2008–2023, this study treats zero-waste city pilots as a quasi-natural experiment and constructs a difference-in-differences model, measuring ULGUE via a super-efficiency slacks-based measure–Global Malmquist–Luenberger (Super-SBM-GML) model under variable returns to scale. The results show that zero-waste city construction significantly and robustly improves ULGUE. Mechanism analysis shows that zero-waste city construction improves ULGUE mainly by optimizing the waste treatment structure, promoting green technological innovation, and facilitating the development of green industries. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the promoting effect is stronger in eastern regions, key environmental protection cities, old industrial base cities, and resource-based cities. Moderating effect analysis indicates that rising public environmental attention and internet development strengthen this effect. Spatial econometric analysis further shows that zero-waste city construction generates significant positive spatial spillovers on neighboring regions in addition to improving local ULGUE. This study reveals the underlying logic and micro-level transmission paths of zero-waste city policy, situates China’s experience within global circular economy governance, and offers policy evidence for emerging economies advancing green land use.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091643

Authors: Xinyu Long Qiao Wang Xiaoxue Xu Haozhuo Gu Xinyu Zang

Settlement heritage, represented by traditional villages, preserves important historical, cultural, and spatial information on long-term human–environment interactions. Under rapid urbanization and rural transformation, many traditional villages in northern China have experienced increasing spatial fragmentation and functional decline. From a river-basin perspective, this study examines the spatial evolution and driving mechanisms of traditional villages in the Yongding River Basin using GIS spatial analysis, GeoDetector, and K-means clustering. The results show that traditional villages are strongly clustered along river valleys and tributary junctions, forming a corridor-oriented spatial structure closely associated with terrain and historical transportation routes. Their distribution evolved from dispersion to clustering and from localized concentrations to wider expansion, while the spatial centroid gradually shifted southeastward. Natural factors provide fundamental environmental constraints, historical transportation elements are closely associated with the pathways of spatial expansion, and sociocultural factors regulate and reinforce existing spatial patterns. Based on the combined characteristics of the selected influencing factors, traditional villages were further classified into three types, for which differentiated conservation and utilization strategies were proposed. These findings highlight the role of river-basin systems in shaping long-term settlement evolution and provide a regional framework for the integrated conservation of traditional villages.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091642

Authors: Hui Tao Jingyi Liang Min Liu Xiaofei Su

Against the backdrop of high-quality development in rural tourism, issues such as landscape homogenization and insufficient coordination among diverse stakeholders have become increasingly prominent, creating a marked disparity with the requirements for distinctive and differentiated development in rural revitalization. This paper aims to investigate how actor-networks drive the dynamic evolution of rural tourism landscapes through translation mechanisms, and to illuminate the agentic role of non-human elements in this process, thereby addressing the core question of why the same set of local resources generates distinct landscape forms across different developmental stages. To this end, this study takes the Mayangxi Ecotourism Area in Fujian as a case study and, drawing on actor-network theory, employs qualitative research methods including in-depth interviews, participant observation, and grounded theory to systematically analyze the phased evolutionary characteristics, actor-network translation logic, and underlying operational mechanisms of rural tourism landscape creation. The findings reveal that: (1) the creation of the Mayangxi rural tourism landscape has successively undergone three major developmental stages—landscape construction, landscape integration, and landscape optimization—during which human and non-human actors, through a complete translation mechanism, drive the continuous iteration of the actor-network, with non-human elements playing a significant agentic role throughout the landscape’s evolution; (2) the local landscape creation has formed a closed-loop operational mechanism of “base activation → network construction → network iteration → sustainable operation,” which effectively supports the sustainable development of rural tourism landscapes. This study addresses the analytical limitations of existing rural landscape research, which tends to focus on human-centered interactions while overlooking the value of non-human elements, expands the application boundaries of actor-network theory in the field of rural tourism, and provides practical guidance for differentiated landscape creation in China’s rural tourism development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091641

Authors: Muhammad Tariq Badshah Hakim Ullah Khan Muhammad Shabir Shahid Rahman Khadim Hussain Farhan Amin Isabel De la Torre Díez Mirtha Silvana Garat de Marin Eduardo Silva Alvarado

LULCC is a major driver of habitat fragmentation, biodiversity loss, and declining landscape connectivity, particularly in rapidly urbanizing regions. Although Islamabad has experienced substantial urban expansion and forest-cover change, long-term city-scale assessments linking land-cover dynamics with landscape connectivity remain limited. This study examined spatiotemporal LULCC in Islamabad from 1991 to 2021 and assessed whether recent forest recovery improved landscape structural connectivity. Landsat images acquired in 1991, 2001, 2011, and 2021 were classified into five land-cover categories: water, forest, built-up area, bare land, and agricultural land. Classification was performed using the Random Forest (RF) algorithm in Google Earth Engine (GEE). Landscape composition and spatial configuration were quantified using FRAGSTATS 4.3, while forest fragmentation was evaluated using the Landscape Fragmentation Tool v2.0 (LFT) with a 100 m edge threshold. The classifications achieved overall accuracies above 90%, with Kappa coefficients (K) greater than 0.85. Built-up area increased from 76.31 km2, representing 7.55% of the study area, in 1991, to 258.62 km2, or 25.60%, in 2021, demonstrating rapid urban expansion and associated habitat conversion. Forest cover increased to 340.86 km2 in 2001, declined to 271.96 km2 in 2011, and subsequently recovered to 409.22 km2 in 2021. Despite this increase in forest extent, fragmentation metrics indicated persistent spatial subdivision and limited structural connectivity. High patch density (PD), reduced landscape aggregation, and changes in the largest patch index (LPI) indicated persistent spatial subdivision and limited habitat continuity. These findings highlight the value of integrating RF-based land-cover classification, multitemporal remote sensing, and landscape metrics for urban environmental monitoring. The findings suggest that future land-use planning should consider landscape connectivity, protection of existing forest patches, and spatially coordinated restoration alongside continued reforestation.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091640

Authors: Jilong Li Hongyang Chen Pan Liao Liang Sun Ruxin Liu

The renewal of historic districts needs to address human-centered issues, such as cultural expression, spatial experience, and visual comfort, at the street scale. However, existing assessment methods predominantly rely on field surveys, expert judgment, or individual visual indicators, making it difficult to produce reproducible and spatially explicit diagnostic evidence across extensive street networks. This study proposes a multidimensional streetscape perception diagnostic framework that evaluates three dimensions: cultural character recognition (CCR), spatial order (SO), and visual comfort (VC). Taking the Pengcheng Qili historic district in Xuzhou, China, as a case study, the framework integrates street-view imagery, subjective pairwise comparisons, the Bradley–Terry model, and ResNet50-based deep learning prediction. Based on 2243 sampling points and 8693 street-view images, three perception–prediction models were developed and evaluated using five-fold stratified cross-validation, followed by independent external validation using additional historic-district images. The outputs were subsequently mapped onto the street network and examined using spatial statistical analysis and multidimensional profile classification. The results show that the three perception dimensions exhibit distinct spatial patterns and significant spatial clustering. CCR forms localized clusters around historical nodes and heritage-rich areas, whereas SO and VC show clearer corridor-like and network-like patterns. The proposed framework organizes streetscape perception predictions into interpretable multidimensional spatial profiles, thereby providing spatial evidence for conservation-oriented renewal and fine-scale governance of historic districts.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091639

Authors: Kuo-Wei Hsu Jen-Chih Chao Hao-Wen Ko

Cities worldwide are converting decommissioned railway corridors into linear parks, yet designers lack guidance on which heritage elements to retain and how to combine them with new interventions. Using the tangible–intangible distinction from heritage discourse, this study classifies visible corridor elements as tangible objects, intangible scenario elements, and intangible environmental context. Six scenes along the Taichung Green Corridor 1908, a 1.6 km elevated linear park in central Taiwan, were rated by 267 prior visitors on seven perception factors and overall preference, which yielded 1602 observations. Because each element configuration is represented by a single scene, the six scenes, rather than the 267 participants, constitute the effective units of inference for element category; element-level results are therefore reported as associations observed within this corridor. Mixed-effects models indicated that the presence of scenario elements was associated with higher uniqueness (b = +0.37), complexity (b = +0.45), legibility (b = +0.34) and preference (b = +0.20), whereas tangible remnants showed no association with perceptual quality that survived the exclusion of a single scene. Perception accounted for 91% of the total association between scenario elements and preference, principally through uniqueness and comfort. Ratings did not differ by gender, age or professional training but were higher among participants with less formal education and the lowest among residents of other districts of the same city. In this corridor, interpretive design rather than material retention was associated with heritage becoming perceptually available, at a measurable cost to naturalness: the material substrate of a heritage greenway behaves as a stock that does not by itself generate a flow. Because the findings rest on six scenes within a single corridor, they are offered as exploratory evidence from the Taichung case rather than as general design principles.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091638

Authors: Weijie Wang Geng Li Peng Zuo Zeyu Zhou Haize Yu Jinshun Duan Huiting Guo Zihao Zhao Jiming Jin

Precipitation is often represented by long-term climatological means in landslide susceptibility assessments, leaving responses to rare seasonal precipitation and associated extrapolation uncertainty poorly understood. This study coupled hydrological frequency analysis with machine learning to assess landslide susceptibility under rainy-season precipitation scenarios in Hanyuan County, China. Daily precipitation (1985–2024) was aggregated into annual June–September totals, and peaks-over-threshold generalized Pareto models were fitted to 84 grid cells to estimate 5-, 20-, 50-, and 100-year return levels. Six machine-learning models were trained using 12 static conditioning factors, mean rainy-season precipitation (MRSP), 414 landslide samples, and 2070 non-landslide samples, and evaluated using a geographically separated 30% holdout region. XGBoost performed best (ROC-AUC = 0.917; 95% confidence interval: 0.863–0.959) and was used for scenario mapping. Median precipitation increased from 896.03 to 998.57 mm under 5-year to 100-year return levels. SHAP analysis identified elevation, MRSP, and distance to roads as the leading predictors. High-susceptibility zones were concentrated along the Dadu and Liusha river valleys. Within the common applicability domain (39.45% of the county), T100 relative to T5 reduced the very-low-susceptibility class by 3.80% points and increased the very-high class by 1.38%. Across their respective applicability domains, the mean susceptibility probability under T100 was 0.025 higher than that under MRSP. Return-levels scenarios therefore identified precipitation-sensitive areas within the model-supported domain.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091637

Authors: Haijiao Wang Yanjun Liu Lei Shi Wenhui Xie Run Wang Xiaxia Suo Xuanxuan Zhang Tengfei Fu Jianrong Cao

Understanding the interaction between ecological carrying capacity and high-quality development is essential for reconciling ecological protection with socioeconomic development in the Yellow River Basin. This study, spanning the period from 2000 to 2023, constructed an ecological carrying capacity index across four dimensions, including water resources, energy, food, and ecological regulation and carbon source-sink balance, and a high-quality development index across five dimensions, including ecology, water resources, economy, culture, and livelihood. TOPSIS, the coupling coordination degree model, exploratory spatial data analysis, the standard deviational ellipse, and multiscale geographically weighted regression were used to characterize spatiotemporal patterns and spatially varying associations. The results showed that: (1) Ecological carrying capacity declined slightly from 0.297 in 2000 to 0.292 in 2005 and then rose to 0.307 in 2023, whereas high-quality development increased from 0.199 in 2000 to 0.267 in 2015 and subsequently stabilized. (2) The coupling coordination degree increased from 0.476 in 2000 to 0.516 in 2023 and exhibited significant positive spatial autocorrelation (global Moran’s I = 0.327–0.440, p < 0.01). (3) MGWR outperformed GWR (R2 = 0.641–0.785 vs. 0.482–0.624), indicating spatial nonstationarity. The ecosystem quality index showed the most stable positive association with coupling coordination degree, the association with patent grants strengthened markedly by 2023, the positive association with GDP per capita diminished, and population density remained negatively associated. This study proposes targeted, zone-specific regulatory recommendations, providing a decision-making basis for scientifically differentiated regulation in the Yellow River Basin.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091636

Authors: Dongmei Zong Jiaqi Cao Xingchuan Gao Yixi Zheng Yuanyuan Gao

Coupling coordination analysis provides a quantitative basis for balancing development and conservation in ecologically fragile regions; however, existing frameworks are predominantly designed for urban agglomerations and seldom integrate transportation, population, and ecology at fine spatial scales. This study develops a township-scale analytical framework that combines ecosystem service value (ESV) accounting, subsystem development evaluation functions, and a coupling coordination degree model, and applies it to the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) for the period 2000–2020. Road density and potential accessibility characterize the transportation subsystem; population size and density characterize the population subsystem; and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Net Primary Productivity (NPP), and ESV characterize the ecological subsystem. Entropy weights are assigned within each subsystem, and spatial autocorrelation together with cold and hot spot analysis is used to identify differentiation patterns. The application demonstrates that the framework effectively captures the spatiotemporal differentiation of coupling coordination at the township scale: on the QTP, the coordination level retreated from good coordination to primary coordination during 2000–2020, with the decline concentrated in 2010–2020; coordinated townships remained confined to central towns and their surroundings, whereas low-coordination areas were contiguously distributed across ecologically sensitive zones. The framework is transferable to other regions facing similar development–conservation tensions and can support territorial spatial planning and ecological security management. The QTP application further suggests that, in plateau contexts, coupling coordination outcomes should be interpreted jointly with regional functional orientations such as ecological red lines.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091635

Authors: Jinhui Fan Li Li Jisi Sun Jia Yang Ran Tu Xingjian Fu Zhihong Luo Hamed Karimian

Long-term monitoring of land cover dynamics is essential for evaluating conservation outcomes in World Heritage sites, yet remains challenging in conflict-affected regions with limited field observations. This study aims to reconstruct annual land cover dynamics and assess forest sustainability in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve (OWR), a World Heritage site in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Using Landsat dense time series observations (2000–2023), the Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC) algorithm, landscape metrics, and the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15.1.1 indicator, we developed an annual scale framework to quantify land cover changes and conservation status. The results showed that forest loss was the dominant land cover change process, with degradation accelerating after 2013. Forest disturbances were spatially heterogeneous, mainly concentrated in the boundary buffer zone and along National Road No. 4, while localized disturbances also occurred within the core protected area. Landscape fragmentation increased during the study period, and SDG 15.1.1 trends revealed differentiated conservation pressures among management zones. This study provides an annual-scale land cover history of the OWR and demonstrates the potential of Earth observation for monitoring endangered World Heritage sites.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091634

Authors: Nadja Penko Seidl Klemen Jerina Mojca Golobič Dejan Bordjan Tadej Bevk

Awareness of the need to shift conservation priorities from protecting isolated habitats to ensuring their connectivity has resulted in the development of several approaches to modelling landscape and ecological connectivity (EC). However, a significant gap between data and the knowledge of EC, and their implementation in spatial planning practice, remains. The presented research has two objectives: to collect, interpret and map existing knowledge and data on EC in Slovenia, and to showcase the possibility for its inclusion into Slovenian spatial planning practice. The surrogate species concept was adopted to address the first objective, followed by two case studies. The concept covers the main groups of terrestrial and flying species with broad habitat and connectivity requirements, sensitivity to anthropogenic disturbances, and conservation status: large carnivores, ungulates, waterfowl, and soaring birds. The concept utilizes existing studies and data on EC for specific species and enables generalized EC mapping that is suitable for spatial planning—the contribution of this article is thus in the usable reinterpretation of existing data. The sites of special concern for each species group are presented on habitat and corridor maps. The proposed concept offers a comprehensive yet robust and pragmatic tool for implementing EC in spatial planning practice, as showcased in the case studies. Although the data were collected and tested within the Slovenian territory and spatial planning framework, the robustness of the concept allows its modification and adaptation to other environments.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091633

Authors: Qunyan Tang Zhongfa Zhou Youyan Huang Denghong Huang Bo Li

Conducting landscape ecological risk (LER) assessments and identifying their driving mechanisms is a key approach to balancing regional development with ecological conservation and enhancing ecological security. Taking the Beipanjiang River Basin (Guizhou section)—a typical karst mountainous watershed—as the study subject, this research analyzed the spatiotemporal evolution of LER in the basin using landscape pattern indices and spatial autocorrelation analysis based on five sets of land-use data from 1985 to 2024. The optimal geographical detector (OPGD) was employed to identify the driving factors. The results are as follows: (1) From 1985 to 2024, the average LER index in the study area decreased by 37.07%. The proportion of the area classified as the lowest-risk zone increased from 18.76% to 38.83%, while the proportions of the medium-risk and higher-risk zones decreased to 14.97% and 3.55%, respectively, indicating an optimization of the ecological security pattern. (2) The center of gravity of the lowest-risk zones shifted northwestward, while the medium-risk and higher-risk zones contracted northeastward. The global Moran’s I ranged from 0.477 to 0.574. High–high clustering zones contracted in the north, and regional stress capacity decreased. Low–low clusters expanded in the south, forming a continuously consolidated ecological barrier zone. (3) The interactions between landscape fragmentation and factors such as elevation, precipitation, and NDVI all exhibited a two-factor enhancement effect, with the risk pattern being primarily driven by the synergy of multiple factors. This study provides a scientific basis for adjusting the land-use structure of the watershed, mitigating ecological risks, and promoting high-quality sustainable development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091632

Authors: Min Wang Hui Zhang Quan Zhou

Mega-events can accelerate land–use/land cover change (LULCC) through infrastructure development and ecological interventions, but the carbon consequences of different land transition pathways remain unclear. Using Yanqing District, a host region of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, as a case study, this study investigates LULC transitions, carbon storage dynamics, and future land management. A coupled PLUS–InVEST framework integrating transition attribution and trajectory analysis was applied to 10-m LULC datasets (2018, 2021, and 2024) to reconstruct historical transitions and simulate four land management scenarios for 2035. Results indicated that total carbon storage increased continuously from 41.19 × 106 t C in 2018 to 42.14 × 106 t C in 2024 despite concurrent urban expansion. This increase resulted from distinct transition processes across the two periods: cropland-to-rangeland conversion contributed most to carbon gains during 2018–2021, whereas rangeland-to-trees conversion dominated gains during 2021–2024. Pixel-level trajectory analysis further revealed that these dominant transitions rarely formed a continuous restoration sequence at the same locations, with rangeland–rangeland–trees trajectories accounting for 76.2% of trajectories leading to trees-class gains. Future simulations showed that the Urban Development Scenario would reduce carbon storage by 5.6%, whereas the Ecological Protection Scenario would increase carbon storage by 2.3% relative to the 2024 baseline. These results indicate that regional carbon dynamics depend not only on LULC composition but also on transition pathways, providing insights into how transition pathways can inform ecological restoration and sustainable land management.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091630

Authors: Pacifique Madibi Mubamba Jean-Paul Kibambe Lubamba Aiyin Zhang Robert Gilmore Pontius

Tropical protected areas face pressures from smallholder agriculture and illegal mining, yet many monitoring approaches reduce these dynamics to net forest loss, obscuring whether change is alternating or persistent. In the Okapi Wildlife Reserve, Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the zoning plan allows only nonperennial crops in agriculture zones and forbids mining throughout the reserve, we analyzed annual Joint Research Centre–Tropical Moist Forest maps from 2000 to 2024 at 30 m spatial resolution. We applied Trajectory Analysis and DynamicPATCH across three study zones: agriculture, mining, and hunting–conservation. Trajectory Analysis classifies each pixel’s twenty-five-year non-forest time series into categories such as Gain without Alternation and Gain with Alternation, distinguishing persistent change from alternating change. Meanwhile, DynamicPATCH decomposes annual differences into eight patch-transition types. Trajectory Analysis summarizes each zone’s change into components of Quantity, Exchange, and Alternation, expressed as an annual percentage of each zone’s unified size to enable comparison among zones of various extents. The Quantity component most clearly distinguishes the zones as it accounts for 45% of the change in the agriculture zone, 98% of the change in the mining zone, and 27% of the change in the hunting–conservation zone. The agriculture study zone is characterized by many alternating trajectories and frequent patch transitions, but after 2022 agriculture evolves toward Gain without Alternation and more expansive transitions, suggesting a move from rotational mosaics toward more persistent non-forest, partly associated with prohibited perennial crops. The mining study zone shows consistent dominance of Gain without Alternation and Expanding or Merging transitions, reflecting progressive, and recently accelerating, expansion of illegal mining fronts. The hunting–conservation study zone remains largely stable, with only sparse and low-magnitude changes. This combined approach distinguishes land-use pattern signatures, shows that full annual series are essential for capturing patch dynamics that endpoint analyses miss, and provides actionable insight into where zoning rules are being followed, stretched, or broken.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091631

Authors: Jiazhen Zhang Yanxi Chen Ruiyang Ma Jeremy Cenci

Rural cultural tourism has become an important pathway for rural revitalization in underdeveloped regions, yet its spatial organization and driving mechanisms remain insufficiently understood. This study investigates the spatial patterns, functional typology, and driving mechanisms—understood as statistically significant spatial associations—of 300 policy-designated rural cultural tourism villages in Gansu Province, China, using an integrated geospatial analytical framework incorporating the Average Nearest Neighbor Index, Kernel Density Estimation (KDE), the Lorenz Curve, Global Moran’s I, and the Geo-detector model. The results reveal a significant clustered distribution characterized by a pronounced “high-density southeast–low-density northwest” pattern. Five functional village types exhibit distinct spatial concentration characteristics associated with differences in resource endowments and development orientations. Geo-detector analysis identifies transportation accessibility, economic development, and topographic conditions as the factors most strongly associated with spatial heterogeneity. Interaction effects among natural, socioeconomic, and policy variables are also detectable. These findings advance the understanding of the spatial organization of rural cultural tourism and demonstrate the value of GIS-based spatial analysis for supporting evidence-based rural revitalization planning and sustainable territorial development in ecologically fragile regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091629

Authors: Zihao Zhang Mengshan Hu Bin Yu Xue Zeng Lixiang He

Sustainable livelihoods for farmers are crucial to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In particular, the sustainability of farmers’ livelihoods in plain agricultural areas is strategically important for poverty alleviation, food security, and the reduction in urban–rural disparities. Drawing on data from a sample survey of farmers and field interviews conducted in the Jianghan Plain, this study evaluates farmers’ sustainable livelihoods in plain agricultural areas. The results indicate the following: (1) In 2022, the sustainable livelihood level of farmers in the Jianghan Plain was relatively low; the average Sustainable Livelihood Index (SLI) of the sampled farmers was 0.3462, with livelihood capital and livelihood outcomes accounting for 50.58% and 49.42% of the SLI, respectively. (2) A significant bidirectional positive interaction existed between farmers’ livelihood capital and livelihood outcomes. Specifically, the coefficient of the promotion effect of livelihood capital on livelihood outcomes was 0.1312, whereas that of the feedback effect of livelihood outcomes on livelihood capital was 1.0128. (3) The coupling coordination degree between farmers’ livelihood capital and livelihood outcomes was moderately unbalanced, with livelihood capital identified as the primary obstacle to farmers’ sustainable livelihood development. The average obstacle degree of livelihood capital was 0.7305, indicating a high degree of constraint. The cumulative obstacle degree of social capital (0.2707), human capital (0.1876), and natural capital (0.1460) reached 60.43%, indicating that these three factors collectively constituted the key obstacles. These findings provide valuable insights into promoting farmers’ livelihood sustainability and rural revitalization in plain agricultural areas.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091628

Authors: Li Yao Wenju Cui Chaoyang Dong Jingqi Yang Xuguang Tang

The Beijing–Hangzhou Grand Canal (BHGC) is a globally recognized linear cultural heritage corridor; however, the fine-scale spatiotemporal dynamics of its comprehensive ecosystem services (ESs) remain poorly understood. Using 30 m high-resolution remote sensing-derived products, this study investigated the spatiotemporal trends and latitudinal patterns of net primary productivity (NPP), soil conservation (SC), water yield (WY), and the improved comprehensive ecosystem services index (CESI) along the BHGC corridor from 2000 to 2020. The improved CESI was constructed via a multiplicative method with cube-root transformation to capture the barrel effect and avoid the compensatory bias inherent in traditional additive approaches. Our results revealed that 91.7% of the pixels exhibited a widespread increasing tendency in CESI, accompanied by a pronounced latitudinal upward gradient from north to south. All three individual ESs improved overall during the study period, with WY increasing most extensively (94.7%), followed by SC (76.9%) and NPP (68.3%), respectively. High-CESI zones were concentrated in the Shandong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang sections, while low-value patches were scattered across the northern Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei sections. Overall, this study provides a robust, fine-scale scientific basis for targeted ecological management and sustainable planning of the Grand Canal Cultural Belt.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091627

Authors: Ruobei Chen Yao Xiong

Land-use change and coastal wetland degradation are reshaping the spatial patterns of coastal blue carbon storage. Identifying how to enhance saltmarsh blue carbon (SBC) while balancing coastal development and ecological protection has become a key issue for coastal environmental management. Taking the Jiangsu coastal zone, China, as the study area, this study developed an integrated InVEST–GeoDetector–PLUS framework to assess carbon storage dynamics and saltmarsh blue carbon changes from 2000 to 2020, identify the driving factors of spatial differentiation, and simulate future responses of saltmarsh blue carbon storage (SBCS) from 2030 to 2050 under three scenarios: Natural Development (ND), Policy Regulation (PR), and Returning Farmland to Wetland (RFW). The results showed that total carbon storage in the Jiangsu coastal zone declined from 2000 to 2020, whereas SBCS continued to increase, indicating an asynchronous response between regional carbon storage and SBC. GeoDetector results identified Landuse and NDVI as the dominant drivers of SBC spatial differentiation, with their interaction substantially enhancing the explanatory power of blue carbon patterns. Future scenario simulations revealed clear differences among the three scenarios. Future scenario simulations showed that SBC fluctuated markedly under the ND scenario, with saltmarsh area decreasing by 89.84% during 2040–2050. The RFW scenario exhibited restoration potential but limited blue carbon gains in the later period, with saltmarsh area increasing by only 1.51%. In contrast, the PR scenario produced the most stable long-term blue carbon gain, with saltmarsh area increasing by 7.27% and SBCS increasing from 0.457 × 106 t to 0.490 × 106 t during 2040–2050. These findings suggest that policy regulation provides a more balanced pathway for maintaining land-use stability, controlling development pressure, and enhancing saltmarsh conservation. This study provides scientific evidence for saltmarsh protection, blue carbon enhancement, and blue carbon-oriented land-use management in rapidly developing coastal zones.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091625

Authors: Kadi Saleh Nadine Nassif Farah Kanj Lamis Chalak Joelle Jandry Georges Hassoun Besher Sekaryeh Mohamad M. Awad Ghaleb Faour Maurizio Mulas

Sustainable pasture management is essential for preserving ecosystem services and supporting livestock production in Mediterranean environments experiencing increasing land-use pressure and climate variability. This study evaluates grassland dynamics in South Lebanon between 2000 and 2024 using multi-temporal Landsat imagery integrated with Geographic Information Systems (GISs) and Random Forest classification. Historical Landsat surface reflectance products were processed using standardized preprocessing procedures, cross-sensor harmonization, and supervised classification. Classification accuracy was assessed using independent validation samples, yielding overall accuracy values ranging from 91.8% to 98.6% and Kappa coefficients between 0.918 and 0.975. Pasture areas were subsequently classified into dense and dispersed grasslands using quantitative NDVI thresholds. A pixel-based transition matrix was employed to quantify land-cover persistence, gains, losses, and conversions throughout the study period. The results reveal substantial spatial redistribution of grasslands associated with agricultural intensification and greenhouse expansion. FAO GIEWS NDVI and Vegetation Health Index products were incorporated only as regional environmental context. The resulting spatial database provides a robust framework for sustainable pasture planning, grazing management, and future land-use policy development in South Lebanon.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091626

Authors: Shixuan Deng Min Xu Suxuan Liu Sizhe Huang Yanglin Yao Yunling Zhuang Xiaxia Shi Longping Wu Heshan Lin

Conflicts between development and conservation on tourism-driven islands are concentrated in bay-adjacent terrestrial areas, yet land-use evolution and scenario responses are rarely compared among functionally distinct bays on the same island. This study examined Haitan Bay and Tannan Bay on Pingtan Island using 2 m remote-sensing images from 2008, 2016, and 2024, landscape metrics, and a coupled System Dynamics–Patch-generating Land Use Simulation (SD–PLUS) model. Natural Development (ND), Ecological Restoration (ER), and Economic Development (ED) scenarios were simulated for 2035; ER and ED outputs were further compared pixel by pixel with Minimum Mapping Unit (MMU) sensitivity testing. From 2008 to 2024, Construction Land expanded and became more aggregated in both bays, mainly at the expense of Cropland and Grassland. Relative to 2024, Construction Land increased by 1.74% and 3.97% under ER in Haitan Bay and Tannan Bay, versus 12.27% and 10.89% under ED. New Construction Land mainly extended around existing built-up areas in Haitan Bay but clustered along transportation corridors in Tannan Bay. Scenario-consistent Areas accounted for 87.56% and 89.29%, while some patch metrics were MMU-sensitive. These results reveal distinct land-use responses between Haitan Bay and Tannan Bay and support differentiated spatial planning for the two bay-adjacent terrestrial areas.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091624

Authors: Margarita Sepúlveda-García Francisco Lima Rafael Blanco-Sepúlveda Federico B. Galacho-Jiménez

Pig slurry management is a challenge in livestock-intensive agricultural areas, where sustainable reuse requires field applications to be translated into measurable and controllable doses. This study evaluated a field-adapted calibration procedure for pig slurry application in a Mediterranean cereal field in southern Spain, particularly for spreading equipment without built-in dose-control systems. Slurry delivery was quantified by direct field collection and weighing and related to the number of tractor passes. Three management scenarios were evaluated: a non-amended control, one pass per application event, and two passes per application event. Soil properties were monitored before slurry application and during two subsequent sampling campaigns. Short-term responses were mainly observed in soil chemical properties, with increases in organic matter and total nitrogen after application and transient changes in available nutrients, whereas the evaluated physical properties showed temporal variation without a consistent slurry-specific pattern. Increasing slurry application did not consistently result in proportional or more persistent soil responses. Given the limited field replication, these findings should be interpreted as exploratory. Overall, the proposed calibration procedure provides a practical framework for converting tractor passes into measurable slurry and nutrient applications that can be adapted to local equipment, slurry characteristics, agronomic requirements, and regulatory conditions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091623

Authors: Xinlei Cui Ranran Wang Ke Duan

As an important policy instrument for promoting regional integration, county-to-district reform plays a significant role in advancing coordinated regional development and optimizing the market-based allocation of factors. Using a balanced panel of 278 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2022, this study treats county-to-district reform as a quasi-natural experiment and employs a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) model to identify its effect on industrial land-factor misallocation. Industrial land-factor misallocation is measured by the deviation between the marginal product of industrial land and its market price, and mechanism tests are conducted to examine the roles of economic agglomeration, industrial agglomeration, and innovative talent agglomeration. This study finds that county-to-district reform alleviates industrial land factor misallocation, and this conclusion remains robust after a series of robustness checks. Mechanism tests show that the reform promotes economic agglomeration, industrial agglomeration, and innovative talent agglomeration, thereby improving industrial land allocation. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the mitigating effect of county-to-district reform on industrial land factor misallocation varies across cities with different characteristics. Further analysis shows that the reform increases industrial land transfer revenue and prices and improves the structure of land supply. This study deepens the understanding of the relationship between administrative restructuring and land-factor allocation and provides policy implications for improving industrial land allocation through institutional reform.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091622

Authors: Shengyan Wu Xi Luo

Land use and land cover change represent major anthropogenic carbon emission sources, yet most existing studies on landscape patterns and carbon emissions predominantly focus on plain urban agglomerations, with limited empirical evidence from terrain-restricted hilly regions. Taking Xuancheng, a typical hilly city in the Yangtze River Delta, as the study area, this paper utilized seven time-series of Landsat remote-sensing datasets spanning 1990–2020. Integrating the land use dynamic degree, transfer matrix, landscape pattern indexes, calibrated carbon coefficients, Spearman correlation analysis and grey relational analysis, this study explored the associations between land use patterns and carbon emissions. Results show that built-up areas expanded 4.08-fold in the past three decades and emerged as the dominant carbon source, while forests maintained persistent carbon sequestration. The largest patch index of built-up area exhibited the strongest correlation with carbon emissions; cultivated land and forest displayed temporally synchronous fluctuations with emissions rather than exerting independent causal effects. Terrain constraints drive axial urban sprawl along transport corridors, elevating correlations of edge-related indexes and generating carbon response patterns distinct from those observed in plain cities. The two-step correlation analysis framework proved suitable for small-sample long-term datasets. These findings suggest that curbing contiguous built-up area expansion, optimizing urban morphology, and strengthening ecological connectivity should be prioritized in low-carbon spatial planning for hilly cities.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091621

Authors: Evangelos Papadias Vassilis Detsis Antonis Hadjikyriacou Christoforos Vradis Apostolos G. Papadopoulos Christos Chalkias

This study reconstructs the agricultural landscape of Cyprus in the early 1830s, a time of extraordinary socio-economic pressures on the island and immediately prior to the economic and administrative transformations of the later nineteenth century, drawing on the Ottoman property survey of 1832/33, an island-wide register documenting over 20,000 households and their assets across 622 principal settlements. The records were converted into a geospatial database and analysed through GIS, spatial statistics, and a transparent, reproducible landscape classification framework, complemented by historical cartographic evidence. The reconstruction reveals distinct agricultural regions shaped by environmental conditions, settlement patterns, and the interplay between subsistence and market-oriented production, with marked concentrations of viticulture, olive cultivation, cotton, grain, sericulture, and pastoralism. A hierarchical classification assigns 471 settlements (77%) to a single-dominant landscape type, 92 (15%) to co-dominant zones, and 50 (8%) to diversified categories, collectively synthesised into a broader interpretation of the landscape as an integrated socioecological system. The findings demonstrate that Ottoman surveys offer considerable, albeit bounded, potential for historical landscape reconstruction, providing a dated baseline for the study of Mediterranean agricultural landscapes and a transferable methodological framework applicable to any region with comparable historical records.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091620

Authors: Lyu Yuan Xinggen Liu Jinfeng Zeng Zhiming Song

Extreme hydrological events induced by climate change pose significant challenges to the ecological stability of river-connected lake-wetland systems. Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake, provides an ideal case for investigating landscape responses to compound drought and flood disturbances. This study quantifies the propagation process from meteorological drought to hydrological drought and identifies critical water level thresholds governing abrupt landscape transitions. By integrating remote sensing data, drought indices, Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA), and piecewise regression, we evaluated nonlinear landscape responses to extreme water level fluctuations. The results showed that the optimal lag time for lake water area response to meteorological drought was 21 days. Landscape connectivity exhibited nonlinear responses to water level variations, with 12.50 m and 12.73 m identified as critical thresholds for maintaining lake-wide connectivity and core deep-water habitats, respectively. The 9.75–14.44 m water level range was identified as the key sensitive interval associated with rapid landscape reorganization. Moreover, landscape responses showed significant spatial heterogeneity, with the Nanji Wetland National Nature Reserve being more sensitive to drought-induced fragmentation than the Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve. These findings provide quantitative thresholds and adaptive management implications for improving the resilience of floodplain lake-wetland systems under increasing hydrological extremes.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091619

Authors: Alba Lilia Santiago-Cruz Marco Aurelio Acevedo-Ortiz Juana Yolanda López-Cruz Yolanda Donají Ortiz-Hernández Juan Regino-Maldonado Pastor Teodoro Matadamas-Ortiz

The transformation of forest landscapes is driven by complex socioecological dynamics. This research analyzes territorial transitions in the Zapotec indigenous community of San Pedro el Alto, Oaxaca, Mexico, from 1997 to 2021, linking vegetation cover changes with the consolidation of its community forest enterprise. Through a mixed methods design, we integrated a multitemporal geospatial analysis of cartographic series with systematic archival research and qualitative triangulation based on semi-structured interviews with key community stakeholders. Our results reveal a strong temporal correspondence, indicating that forest canopy alterations align with institutional milestones and silvicultural cycles rather than representing arbitrary degradation. The evidence indicates that intense forest disturbance and anthropic transitions, such as agricultural expansion, correspond with industrial operational crises, functioning as temporary, community-regulated social buffering mechanisms to secure livelihoods. Under the theoretical principles of the commons and New Institutional Economics, the forest functions as a highly resilient socioecological system where local governance and landscape modifications respond adaptively to sustain collective wellbeing. These findings highlight the value of combining spatial data with qualitative verification, proving that recognizing collective self-governance can inform contemporary territorial planning models to support biocultural heritage conservation.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091617

Authors: MartaAnna Skiba Inna Abramiuk Nimet Pinar Özgüner

Urban forests play an important role in improving environmental quality and supporting the well-being of city residents. However, their effective planning and management require comprehensive assessment methods that integrate both spatial characteristics and users’ perceptions. This study evaluates the quality of the Piast Hills urban forest complex in Zielona Góra (Poland) using a methodology that combines field analysis, questionnaire surveys, expert assessment and Space Syntax analysis. Four assessment criteria were adopted: accessibility, safety, recreational appeal and user comfort. These components were integrated into the proposed Synthetic Assessment of Forest Environment Index (SAFEI), while Space Syntax analysis was incorporated as a complementary spatial analysis supporting the interpretation of accessibility-related results and the spatial configuration of the path network. The findings indicate that recreational appeal was the highest-rated aspect of the urban forest, whereas safety received the lowest assessment, highlighting the need to improve lighting, surveillance and wayfinding. The calculated SAFEI value (0.607) indicates a moderately high quality of the investigated urban forest complex. The Space Syntax analysis provided complementary spatial information that was consistent with the accessibility patterns identified through the questionnaire and expert assessment. Unlike most previous studies focusing on individual aspects of urban forests, the SAFEI framework provides an integrated approach that can support evidence-based planning, management and long-term monitoring of urban forests and other urban green spaces.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091618

Authors: Mamattursun Eziz Mireguli Ainiwaer

Potentially toxic elements (PTEs) are one of the most concerning pollutant types in the surface environment. In this study, a total of 115 farmland soils from the 0–20 cm layer were collected from the Ibinur Lake Basin (ILB) in northwest China to investigate the concentration characteristics, pollution status, potential ecological risks, and possible sources of seven PTEs (As, Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, Hg, and Zn). The pollution load index (PLI) method was applied to quantify soil pollution status, while the potential ecological risk index (RI) was adopted to evaluate PTE-induced ecological risks. Multivariate statistical approaches were further implemented to trace the potential sources of these PTEs. The obtained results revealed that the average concentrations of As, Cd, Ni, Pb, and Zn present in farmland soil surpass the corresponding background values by factors of 2.41, 1.99, 1.15, 1.18, and 5.60, respectively. Single-factor pollution assessment indicated heavy Zn pollution, moderate As pollution, low-level Cd, Pb, and Ni pollution, and slight Cu pollution across farmland soils in the ILB, whereas no Hg pollution was detected. PTEs in farmland soil show a low pollution level, with an average PLI value of 1.31. Obvious spatial heterogeneity was observed in the distribution of all seven PTEs. The comprehensive potential ecological risk of PTEs remained low, with an average RI of 23.87; among all target PTEs, As and Cd contributed the largest share of ecological risks. Source apportionment demonstrated that Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn were potentially derived from combined natural and anthropogenic inputs, Hg was likely associated with lithogenic natural sources, and As was potentially derived from agricultural anthropogenic activities. Collectively, As and Cd were identified as the priority pollutants posing pollution and ecological risks in this basin. This study improves the systematic understanding of PTE pollution risks in arid agricultural soils and the results suggest that regular long-term monitoring should be implemented for local soils.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091616

Authors: Lijuan Gong Lanqi Jiang Liangliang Wang Jingjin Gong Dan Liu Xiufen Li Ping Wang Chenglong Yu Junjie Han

A quantitative assessment of the characteristics and driving mechanisms of black soil erosion is essential to sustainable agricultural development. In this study, we analyzed the spatiotemporal dynamics of the soil erosion modulus (SEM) in the Typical Black Soil Region (TBSR) of Northeast China from 1980 to 2020. The SEM dataset we utilized was derived from a high-resolution dataset utilizing the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model. The independent and interactive effects of nine driving factors, including geographic, climatic, and anthropogenic variables, were quantified. Our findings are as follows: (1) The annual average SEM exhibited a slight but non-significant increase (0.002 t·ha−1·a−1), with a notable fluctuation since 2000. (2) While most regions demonstrated persistence with stability, areas with non-significant slight degradation trends were identified in parts of the eastern Inner Mongolia, Songnen, and Sanjiang subregions. (3) Slope and altitude emerged as the dominant factors influencing SEM patterns, with their effects substantially enhanced through interactions with other variables. Temporally, from the 2000 baseline to the 2001–2010 and 2011–2020 periods, the explanatory power of GDP consistently increased, contributing to an overall rise in anthropogenic influence that surpassed climatic factors. This trend indicated that human activities had increasingly impacted SEM patterns relative to climatic effects. (4) High-risk zones were identified at slopes of 6~8° and elevations of 1230~1430 m (approximately 0.2% of the region). These zones often overlap with ecologically fragile grassland situated in areas characterized by low socio-economic development. These findings underscore the nonlinear coupling mechanisms connecting human activities, land use, and climate systems, providing a scientific basis for targeted erosion mitigation and sustainable farmland management.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091615

Authors: Atia M. Eisa Alwaleeed A. Alghamdi Ahmed S. Althobaiti Areej H. Alkhalifa Ahmed I. Shahin Abdulrahman S. Alrefae Abdullah M. Alowaifeer Hussein Hassan Alkhamis Abdulwahed Fahad Alrefaei

The King Abdulaziz Royal Reserve (KARR), one of Saudi Arabia’s eight royal reserves, displays strong seasonal vegetation turnover typical of arid-zone ecosystems, yet its environmental drivers remain largely unquantified. This study aimed to establish a seasonally resolved, statistically validated baseline of plant community composition in KARR and to quantify the soil and topographic variables associated with this compositional variation. To this end, we surveyed a defined section of KARR across all four seasons of 2023 (763 plots: 189 winter, 213 spring, 188 summer, 173 autumn) using a systematic 10 km sampling grid. A total of 289 vascular plant species from 47 families were recorded, and species richness, Shannon and Simpson diversity, and functional dispersion were quantified per community; the flora was dominated by therophytes (48.4%) and chamaephytes (21.5%) and by Saharo-Arabian phytogeographic affinities. For each season, Ward’s hierarchical clustering (k = 4) identified four plant communities, validated by PERMANOVA (p = 0.001 in every season) and distinct characteristic species. Soils across the study area were predominantly sandy loam, with texture, pH, electrical conductivity, organic matter, and macronutrients quantified per community. Canonical Correspondence Analysis showed that elevation and soil properties (clay, sand, potassium) significantly explained community composition each season (p = 0.001), though explained variance was modest (4–8%); variance partitioning showed a substantial spatial fraction exceeding the pure environmental fraction in every season. Functional dispersion was consistently lowest in one community each season; characteristic-species composition resolved this into two recurring functional types—a woody, disturbance-associated assemblage (indicated by Rhazya stricta) in winter and summer, and a psammophytic, dune-associated assemblage (indicated by Artemisia monosperma and Moltkiopsis ciliata) in spring and autumn—both reflected in Rao’s quadratic entropy (a closely related metric, r = 0.95). These results provide a seasonally resolved, statistically validated baseline of plant community composition and its environmental correlates for KARR, supporting future vegetation monitoring and habitat-based management, and contribute a data point from an under-studied hyper-arid region to the global understanding of dryland vegetation–environment relationships and grazing-driven degradation.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091614

Authors: Zewen Yuan Qi Zhang Wanping Yang Liying Song

High-standard farmland construction is a major land use policy aimed at improving farmland quality and strengthening the foundation of agricultural production. However, whether farmland improvement policies reshape the direction of agricultural technological change remains insufficiently understood. This study examines the impact of China’s high-standard farmland construction on land-enhancing technological change. Using provincial panel data from China, we construct two land-related biased technological progress indices—the capital–land and labor–land technological bias indices—based on a normalized factor-augmenting CES production framework, and further explore the underlying mechanisms through scale and price effects. The results show that high-standard farmland construction makes agricultural technological progress more inclined toward improving land factor efficiency, indicating a clear land-enhancing characteristic. Mechanism analysis reveals that the policy affects technological bias through both scale and price channels. In the capital–land relationship, both channels contribute to land-enhancing technological change, suggesting that capital inputs associated with farmland construction mainly function as land-supporting investments that improve land productivity rather than simply replacing land. In the labor–land relationship, the scale effect plays a dominant role, indicating that improved farmland conditions reduce dependence on traditional labor inputs and strengthen the productive role of land. Regional heterogeneity analysis shows that the land-enhancing effect is particularly evident in central China, while differences in agricultural development conditions and factor allocation structures lead to heterogeneous regional responses. This study extends the understanding of land use policies by revealing their role in shaping the direction of agricultural technological change. The findings highlight high-standard farmland construction as an important pathway for promoting sustainable land management and long-term food security.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091613

Authors: Marzia Gabriele Mariame Chahbi Maryam Mazouz Youssef El Ganadi Raffaella Brumana

Flood events in agricultural floodplains reflect not only rainfall intensity but the vulnerability of the affected area at the moment of the event. This study examines the January–February 2026 flood in Larache Province, Morocco, through an integrated remote sensing workflow combining Sentinel-1 SAR, CHIRPS precipitation, and Dynamic World land cover in Google Earth Engine, processed via the rgee R package. Flood extent was mapped using SAR backscatter change detection and cross-checked against rainfall dynamics, yielding about 6660 ha of inundation (2.4% of the province), concentrated along the main Loukkos river corridor and adjacent floodplain around Ksar El Kebir, with smaller scattered patches to the south. Land cover was assessed across four temporal windows (spring 2025, pre-event, post-event, and spring 2026) to evaluate how the landscape entered the event and how it recovered. A significant share of normally cultivated land was in a bare-soil state before the flood, a condition that the literature associates with increased runoff. Post-flood analysis across 25 sample areas grouped into three geomorphic zones shows spatially uneven recovery, with cropland still below seasonal norms in spring 2026. These patterns are consistent with structural land-use conditions (wetland loss, intensive seasonal agriculture, drought-degraded soils) that may have amplified an already severe event. The findings support cover cropping, updated flood-hazard zoning, and targeted wetland restoration to reduce vulnerability in the Loukkos floodplain and comparable Mediterranean alluvial floodplains.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091612

Authors: Junwei Wang Xilin Wu Lihui Sun Zeqian Zhang Xiaohan Liao Mengxiao Liu

Human-oriented smart cities and landscape systems increasingly depend on reusable, high-resolution geospatial observations, yet unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery is commonly acquired for a single task and retained by separate organizations. This study diagnoses the resulting reuse bottlenecks using an improved combinatorial weighting multi-criteria decision method (ICW-MCDM). Seven experts assessed four dimensions and 17 criteria. Data Rights (0.0912), Data Security (0.0823), Share Policy (0.0819), Data Description (0.0804), and Incentives (0.0706) received the highest integrated weights. A transparent raw-score comparator recovered the same five-item set, while bootstrap and leave-one-out checks supported a governance-oriented leading set with panel dependence for some criteria. After C1–C6 were excluded, Data Description, Reliable Data, Access Permissions, Service Facilities, Search and Discovery, and Data Citation and Provenance became the leading post-entry requirements. By 11 August 2026, a national directory platform had recorded 336,753 visits, fewer than ten formal applications, and two completed university research deliveries. The cases demonstrate small-scale matching, cross-institutional aggregation, and controlled delivery, but not general platform effectiveness or downstream GeoAI outcomes. The study separates governance entry from technical readiness and identifies governance and technical prerequisites for GeoAI-ready UAV data infrastructure.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091611

Authors: Yin Ding Changdong Ye Long Zhou Zhiqiang Yi Yanjun Ou

In high–density historic districts, heritage conservation, compact urban morphology, and intensive land use constrain opportunities for large–scale greening, increasing the importance of street–level visible greenery. Taking Guangzhou’s historic districts as a case, this study quantifies the street–level Green View Index (GVI) from 45,380 Baidu Street View sampling points using Mask2Former semantic segmentation and analyzes 892 valid 150 m × 150 m grid cells. Global and Local Moran’s I were used to characterize spatial dependence and clustering. Spearman correlation assessed exploratory bivariate associations, while ordinary least squares (OLS), residual spatial–autocorrelation diagnostics, the spatial lag model (SLM), and the spatial error model (SEM) were used to evaluate multivariable associations and residual spatial dependence. Mean GVI was 16.74% at the point level and 16.70% at the grid level. Global Moran’s I was 0.354 (z = 19.585, permutation p = 0.001), indicating significant positive spatial autocorrelation. Across the tested grid resolutions, SVI and SEI remained significantly negatively associated with GVI, while NDVI and NDBI retained significant positive and negative associations, respectively. Additional specifications excluding SVI and/or SEI further supported the consistency of the NDVI and NDBI associations. SEM provided the best fit among the compared models, with substantial spatial dependence remaining in the error structure after the measured covariates were controlled. Overall, visible greenery was significantly associated with vegetation background, built–up intensity, and street–interface characteristics. The findings provide a spatial evidence base for context–sensitive land management and micro–renewal aimed at improving the continuity and street–level visibility of existing greenery while respecting historic urban fabric.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091610

Authors: Ken Taylor

The paper is a systematic review of the sense of place construct. It aims to offer a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature in the field, pointing to any gaps or inconsistencies. The concept of sense of place has long been central to the disciplines of human geography, environmental psychology, landscape studies, and heritage discourse. It has been traditionally understood as the emotional, experiential, and symbolic meanings people attach to places, places; sense of place has evolved alongside changing interpretations of landscape and heritage. This paper revisits the concept of sense of place and critically examines its interaction with landscape and heritage frameworks. By tracing theoretical developments and exploring contemporary challenges—such as globalisation, heritage commodification, and climate change—the paper argues that sense of place remains a vital, fundamental and interactive concept. It addresses how a deeper understanding of how landscapes and heritage sites are experienced, remembered, contested, and managed, is critical to sense of place. The paper concludes that recognising the dynamic and relational nature of sense of place is essential for sustainable landscape planning and inclusive heritage practices. It This study is intended to inform a wider audience, including graduate students, academics and practitioners in the various disciplines, of how sense of place cannot be objectively/quantifiably proved. Rather it results from qualitative interactions between people and places in the context of ordinary everyday places—the ordinarily sacred—and special places. Fundamental to such an approach is appreciating how intangible associations between people and places guide people’s sense of place., i.e., how and why do people react consciously to such associations. The paper does not attempt to redefine or reinvent the sense of place concept, but to inquire into how it works and for whom.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091608

Authors: Yuwei Wu Xuena Wan Qing Zhang Guang Fu Huaiyue Liang Hui Fu

The Limushan Area of Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park is a biodiversity hotspot where ecological conservation areas are closely interwoven with surrounding human land-use activities. To examine the spatial relationships between landscape configuration and land-use-derived human activity intensity (HAI) in the Limushan Area and its surrounding regions, this study combined landscape pattern metrics, the HAI proxy, a four-quadrant model, and bivariate Local Moran’s I to compare endpoint differences, assess coupling characteristics and local spatial associations, and characterize model-defined human–land relationship types. The results showed that: (1) in both 2000 and 2020, the landscape patterns in the core conservation area of Limushan and the southern high-altitude areas were characterized by low landscape fragmentation, high landscape aggregation, and relatively low HAI, corresponding to more continuous forest landscapes; (2) the northern and eastern surrounding regions generally showed relatively higher landscape fragmentation and HAI, with local differences between 2000 and 2020 concentrated around developed areas and transportation corridors; (3) metric-specific bivariate LISA results showed that relatively high HAI was spatially associated with higher patch density (PD) and landscape shape index (LSI) and lower aggregation index (AI), particularly in developed areas surrounding the Limushan Area. After direction-consistent mapping to the conceptual four-quadrant framework, coordinated relationships were the dominant model-defined type, followed by antagonistic relationships, whereas transitions toward coordination and antagonism accounted for comparatively smaller proportions. Overall, the analysis characterized the spatial distribution of model-defined human–land relationship types and their endpoint changes between 2000 and 2020, highlighting peripheral developed areas and transition zones as locations requiring greater attention in conservation and land-use management.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091609

Authors: Lilliana L. H. Peng Shujun Li Ningye Feng

Urban blue and green spaces can alleviate extreme heat stress induced by global warming and urban heat islands, yet existing findings on their integrated cooling effects remain inconsistent. This study examined how the integrated cooling effects and relative cooling effectiveness of blue and green spaces differ with vegetation types and diurnal periods, based upon field measurements of two waterfront parks in subtropical Nanjing, China. Hourly air temperature was monitored at 15 sites with distinct blue–green–gray compositions within the two parks over 22 consecutive summer days. Results showed that both parks exhibited a cooling effect relative to the urban reference site (cooling frequency: 90.5% and 95.3%, respectively), whereas nocturnal warming emerged when the suburban meteorological station was used as the reference (warming frequency: 48.3% and 67.0%, respectively). The daytime air temperature was positively associated with gray-space proportions within 25–200 m buffers, whereas the nighttime air temperature was negatively correlated with green-space proportions within 200–500 m buffers. The integrated effect of blue–green spaces in the two parks was highly context-dependent: the tree-covered waterfronts provided sustained daytime cooling, whereas the grass-covered waterfronts cooled mainly at night; water proximity may suppress tree cooling during daytime, with no consistent influences observed for grasses. These observed patterns may offer preliminary empirical reference for climate-adaptive designs in similar subtropical waterfront settings.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091607

Authors: Zhuhao Lin Yulin Zhu Zhihuan Wang

Farmland fragmentation and continued rural labor outmigration make it difficult for smallholder economies to maintain grain production through land consolidation alone. Using China’s Agricultural Production Service Pilot Program as a quasi-natural experiment, this study applies a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) design to provincial panel data for 2006–2023 to examine how service-based scale affects land use and major-grain production. The results show that agricultural production services increase aggregate rice, wheat, and maize output mainly by expanding the major-grain sown area (the extensive margin), rather than by increasing average yield. By expanding mechanized operations in time-sensitive sowing, transplanting, and harvesting stages, the program reduces dependence on local agricultural labor, increases major-grain sown area per primary-sector worker, raises multiple-cropping intensity, and reallocates crop-sown area toward major grains. These outcomes are consistent with reduced land idling and more intensive land use. The program also increases the land-transfer rate, but the interaction with the pre-policy land-transfer rate is statistically insignificant. Thus, a high initial land-transfer rate was not an empirically detected prerequisite for the average output effect; this finding does not imply that service operations are unaffected by severe physical fragmentation. Further evidence indicates that the program improves agricultural total factor productivity, consistent with better coordination of land, labor, and machinery. The findings show that service-based mechanization can support major-grain production under fragmented smallholder farming and labor outmigration without requiring extensive prior concentration of land-management rights.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091606

Authors: Isaac T. Okurut Catherine Mulinde Saul D. Ddumba Bernard Fungo

Reliable spatial information on soil organic carbon (SOC) is important for soil-fertility management, climate-resilient coffee production, and land-restoration planning, yet the heterogeneity of smallholder agricultural landscapes is difficult to represent with field observations alone. This study characterised SOC variability, compared four machine-learning (ML) algorithms—Random Forest (RF), Cubist, Gradient Boosted Machines (GBM), and Support Vector Machine (SVM)—identified the main predictive environmental covariates, and generated SOC prediction maps for a smallholder Robusta coffee landscape in South–Central Uganda. A total of 126 georeferenced surface-soil observations (0–30 cm) were analysed for SOC using the Walkley–Black dichromate wet-oxidation method and related to climatic, terrain, spectral, soil, land-cover, and spatial-position covariates within the SCORPAN framework. Models were tuned within an SOC-stratified training subset and evaluated using a withheld 20% random holdout. Observed SOC ranged from 0.31% to 5.30%, with a mean of 2.06% and a coefficient of variation of 62.7%. Independent holdout performance was limited. SVM performed best (R2 = 0.36; RMSE = 1.05), followed by Cubist, RF, and GBM. Annual mean temperature and spatial position had the highest predictive importance, followed by soil type, Landsat 9 Band 5, and annual precipitation. All four models reproduced a broad pattern of relatively higher SOC in Kalungu and central Masaka and lower SOC in Southern Kyotera and parts of Lwengo, although the magnitude of local variation differed among algorithms. The resulting maps are, therefore, best suited for landscape-level screening, sampling prioritisation, and identifying areas requiring field verification, rather than farm-level SOC prescription.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091605

Authors: Chao Huang Hao Liu Lin Ma

How can public authorities make ecological resources governable and economically actionable without reducing nature to an ordinary commodity? This study examines ecological product value realization (EPVR) in China through 58 official domestic cases. Constructivist grounded-theory coding, Gioia-style data structuring, cross-batch mapping, documentary triangulation, and coding-consistency checks identify five recurrent and interdependent governance functions: institutional recognition, value articulation, governed market construction, collaborative mobilization, and public-value recirculation. These functions are empirically recursive rather than sequential. Recognition constitutes ecological resources and rights as governable objects; articulation makes plural ecological contributions communicable; market construction creates bounded conditions for exchange; collaborative mobilization assembles implementation capacity; and recirculation links captured value to ecological reinvestment, community benefit, and accountability. Cross-batch comparison provides qualified evidence that later demonstration repertoires increasingly incorporate multi-resource portfolio governance. The study contributes to land governance and public policy by conceptualizing EPVR as governed value translation. The framework further distinguishes value realization from value capture and public value creation: making ecological value actionable or generating financial returns does not by itself establish public value unless ecological integrity, distributive legitimacy, and accountability are secured. A public-policy architecture is one in which ecological markets are institutionally constructed and remain subject to ecological, distributive, and accountability constraints. Public value is treated as the normative outcome criterion, while recirculation is a feedback function that can connect value capture to that criterion.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091604

Authors: Xinxin Liu Ying Tang Chengyong Shi

Maintaining rice terraces as living agricultural heritage requires distinguishing interruptions of paddy production from changes in settlement fabric, yet evidence on associated factors remains limited in the Qinba transition zone. This study compared terrace abandonment, paddy-to-dryland conversion, and composite change in the settlement architectural landscape in five villages of the Fengyan Ancient Terraces using 260 household questionnaires, 189 changed-plot records, GIS, and binary logistic models. Overall, 77 (29.62%) experienced abandonment, 65 (25.00%) dryland conversion, and 198 (76.15%) composite settlement change; 31 dwellings (11.92%) were vacant or physically deteriorated. A higher share of farmland served by gravity-fed irrigation was associated with lower odds of abandonment and conversion, whereas greater maximum walking time to cultivated plots was associated with higher odds of abandonment. Core-area location showed no stable association with either production outcome, and the exploratory settlement model was not statistically significant. Because the cross-sectional models identify associations rather than motives or causal sequences, the results do not establish that irrigation deterioration caused conversion. By distinguishing cessation of cultivation, adaptive crop conversion, and settlement change, this study identifies functional irrigation continuity and site-specific accessibility as more informative conservation targets than static boundaries alone, while supporting context-sensitive settlement renewal.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091603

Authors: Wei Wei Guangcan Cui

Real estate market risk has long been a core policy concern for governments worldwide, as risks across the land, real estate, and financial markets are inherently deeply coupled. Accurate measurement and early warning of systemic risks in the land–real estate–financial market system constitute a critical prerequisite for forestalling major economic fluctuations. In the era of big data, the proliferation of high-frequency, large-scale, and multi-dimensional market data poses formidable challenges to conventional risk assessment frameworks. Grounded in the perspective of interlinkages among the land, real estate, and financial markets, this paper employs the BEKK-GARCH model to construct a time-varying composite risk index and further incorporates the CNN-LSTM machine learning model to provide early warning of coupled risks in the land–real estate–financial market system. The empirical results demonstrate that the constructed composite risk index exhibits strong validity and high sensitivity, and the findings remain robust under stochastic scenarios. Compared with other benchmark early-warning models, the CNN-LSTM model delivers superior overall early-warning performance. The findings of this study carry significant practical implications for dynamically monitoring and providing early warning of real estate market risks in the context of big data, curbing cross-market risk contagion, and safeguarding the sustainable and sound development of the land–real estate–finance nexus.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091602

Authors: Yiqiang Feng Ziao Chen

Uniform legal requirements for written farmland-rental contracts do not necessarily produce uniform contracting practices. This study examines how policy-tool design, transaction heterogeneity, and institutional access jointly structure written-contract adoption in rural China. We coded 101 provincial policy documents across 27 provincial-level regions, of which 69 documents contributed to the baseline policy stock as of 31 December 2021, and analyzed 7237 farmland-transfer transactions using fixed-effects models, common-support restrictions, overlap weighting, and entropy balancing. General contract norms were more extensively operationalized than differentiated risk-governance tools (mean scores, 1.673 vs. 1.309), a pattern observed in 19 of 27 regions. Written-contract adoption was higher among professional agricultural operators and in larger transactions, whereas the positive unadjusted difference for non-local operators reversed after covariate adjustment. Transactions reporting a village-level organization or intermediary channel had an adjusted adoption rate 16.05 percentage points higher than other transactions; estimates remained positive under more local fixed effects and weighting, although magnitude and precision varied across channel configurations and target populations. These findings indicate that contractual formalization is associated with both transaction-specific demand for safeguards and practical access to formal institutions. Effective governance should therefore combine accessible general contracting procedures with tiered risk safeguards and organizational services, while avoiding causal claims from the observational estimates.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091600

Authors: Yingfan Zhao Yameng Jiang Xi Guo Jun Zhang Hongyu Wang

Cropland abandonment is a critical challenge for food security and the sustainable use of land resources, especially in the hilly and mountainous regions of southern China. To characterize the spatiotemporal evolution and associated-factor patterns of cropland abandonment in these regions, this study uses Ji’an City, Jiangxi Province, as a case study and develops an integrated framework for abandonment identification and monitoring, predictive-association analysis, relative risk assessment, and zoning management. Using Landsat remote sensing imagery from 1990 to 2024, crop phenological features, and multisource topographic, soil, climatic, ecological, and socioeconomic data, we identified and evaluated long-term cropland abandonment. The results show that, after incorporating phenological features and temporal filtering, annual land-use classification evaluated with spatially separated testing samples achieved a mean overall accuracy of 95.27% and a mean Kappa coefficient of 0.931, and the overall accuracy of cropland abandonment identification reached 91.58%, with a Kappa coefficient of 0.83. Cropland abandonment in Ji’an City showed an overall accelerating trend, with the abandonment rate exceeding 15% during 2020–2021. Spatially, abandonment was more intensive in the west than in the east and more severe in mountainous areas than in plains. Paddy field abandonment was the dominant form of cropland abandonment across the city, whereas dryland abandonment was more limited in extent but showed stronger interannual fluctuations. The predictive-association analysis indicated that tree cover consistently showed high predictive importance for both paddy fields and drylands. Paddy field predictions were more strongly associated with topographic position, surface roughness, and soil conservation, whereas dryland predictions showed stronger associations with aridity and population density. From 1993 to 2023, the model-estimated relative abandonment risk increased, and high-risk areas expanded from deep mountainous regions to low-hill areas. By coupling relative risk levels with associated-factor patterns, we divided paddy fields and drylands into four management zones: core protection zones, dynamic warning zones, integrated improvement zones, and ecological fallow zones. Differentiated management strategies were then proposed for each zone. This study provides methodological support and decision-making evidence for cropland abandonment monitoring, cropland protection, and differentiated land management in the hilly and mountainous regions of southern China.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091601

Authors: Geonhwi Jung Mooyoung Lim Choongshik Woo Bomi Kim Yongku Kim Yongchul Shin Joowon Park

Landslides triggered by heavy rainfall have become increasingly frequent and severe, creating a need for the rapid and accurate detection of damaged areas for post-disaster response and recovery planning. This study developed a ChangeFormer-based landslide damage detection model using single-channel differenced Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (dNDVI) imagery derived from pre- and post-event Sentinel-2 data. Landslide reference data were used to construct a patch-based training dataset, and model generalization was evaluated in Sancheong-gun and Hapcheon-gun, Gyeongsangnam-do, Republic of Korea, where landslide damage was reported following heavy rainfall in 2025. As available reference data differed between these regions, region-specific validation strategies were applied. In Sancheong-gun, polygon and point reference data were used for quantitative validation. All 12 reference-defined damaged sites were intersected by the model predictions, corresponding to a site-level detection rate of 100%. Point-based assessment showed an increasing distance-based detection rate with increasing positional tolerance, reaching 87.9% within the 80–100 m tolerance range. This result was interpreted as positional agreement between the reference points and predicted damaged areas rather than as overall accuracy. In Hapcheon-gun, where official polygon- and point-based reference data were unavailable, qualitative external validation using drone imagery indicated that the predicted areas were generally consistent with locations interpreted as landslide damage. These results suggest that the proposed framework is effective for the post-disaster spatial assessment of landslide-damaged areas.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091599

Authors: Mengchun Cui Yiming Feng Qi Lu Lei Xi Zhao Qi Xiaoming Cao

Monitoring vegetation dynamics in drylands and disentangling their driving mechanisms are essential for deciphering vegetation–climate feedbacks and supporting targeted ecological restoration. Taking the Circum-Tarim Basin as the study region, this study adopted the modified soil-adjusted vegetation index (MSAVI) as a vegetation proxy and integrated multiple statistical approaches to quantify spatiotemporal vegetation variations across four land-use types from 2000 to 2021. The relative importance of time-lag and cumulative climatic effects on vegetation growth were evaluated for specific land-use types. The main results show that: (1) Widespread vegetation greening occurred across the study area, and croplands dominated this positive trend. (2) Vegetation generally exhibited more immediate responses to climate change in cropland and woodland, whereas grassland and unused land showed more heterogeneous, lagged responses. (3) Despite the inherently low absolute R2 values typical of hyper-arid pixel-scale modeling, climate models incorporating cumulative and lagged effects showed substantial relative improvements in explanatory power (ΔR2) compared to contemporaneous models, particularly in cropland and woodland. These improvements were consistently retained under out-of-sample validation (positiveΔCV-R2). These findings highlight the importance of considering land-use-specific lagged and cumulative climate effects when assessing dryland vegetation–climate interactions, which provides useful implications for ecological restoration and climate adaptation in arid basins.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091598

Authors: Yunxin Zhang Lan Li Jinping Wang Jinxi Hua

Traditional villages preserve regional cultural memory and distinctive rural landscapes while embodying the historical evolution of human–land relationships. This study examines the spatial distribution and influencing factors of 221 nationally listed traditional villages in central Shanxi using GIS-based spatial analysis, standard deviational ellipse analysis, river and road buffer analyses, and the optimal parameters-based geographical detector (OPGD). The villages are significantly clustered in a multi-core, locally contiguous pattern oriented along a northeast–southwest axis. Most are located at elevations of 500–1000 m. Village frequencies vary nonlinearly with distance from rivers and roads, suggesting trade-offs among water access, hazard avoidance, and transport connectivity. Temperature, population density, GDP, and elevation show relatively strong explanatory power, while the interaction between urbanization rate and population density has the highest explanatory power. By linking historical formation conditions with contemporary development pressures, this study proposes a cultural landscape network organized around high-density village clusters, water-system and historical transport corridors, and major mountain–basin landscape units, supported by differentiated conservation zoning and context-specific rural spatial governance. These findings provide region-specific evidence for living heritage conservation and sustainable rural governance.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091597

Authors: Changjun Gu Linshan Liu Yili Zhang

Grassland degradation severely undermines the functions of grassland ecosystems. Inconsistencies in defining grassland degradation have spawned various estimation methods, leading to ongoing controversies. We argue that grassland degradation is a process-oriented phenomenon and should thus be detected by identifying specific stages and statuses within this process. Based on this assumption, we quantified the grassland changes and mapped the grassland degradation in the Three-River Source Region (TRSR) by incorporating three-dimensional indicators: greenness, spatial heterogeneity, and temporal stability. We found that most grasslands exhibited a greening trend (78.59%), while the remaining 21.41% showed a browning trend. Meanwhile, a decreasing trend in spatial heterogeneity was observed in 56.93% of the grasslands, whereas 43.07% displayed the opposite trend. By combining the above two indicators, potential preliminary stages of grassland degradation were identified. The results indicate that 52.50% of the total grasslands are experiencing indicator-based signals consistent with improving conditions, while 47.50% remain in a potential deteriorating state. After incorporating stability, we found that 52.54% of the improving grasslands are in an unstable state, whereas 55.86% of the deteriorating grasslands are in a stable state. Although the observed greening trends coincide temporally with the implementation of ecological restoration projects in the TRSR, and this temporal overlap is consistent with the interpretation that these initiatives may have supported the observed improvement, the remotely sensed stable deteriorating trends hidden beneath unstable improvements require ongoing, targeted attention.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091596

Authors: Weixiang Sun Jiayi Zheng Linwei Guan Peilin Lan Haoran Lu Abudukeyimu Abulizi

Against the backdrop of global warming and the “warming and moistening” trend in northwestern China, arid inland river basins are highly sensitive to climate change, with their vegetation dynamics strongly controlled by upstream snowmelt water supply. The Keriya River Basin, situated on the northern slope of the Kunlun Mountains and the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert, exhibits pronounced vertical zonation in vegetation cover and relies heavily on upstream snowmelt water supply for its water resources. To date, there has been a lack of systematic research into the spatiotemporal evolution patterns of long-term NDVI time series in this basin, its multiscale climate responses, and, in particular, future vegetation projections based on CMIP6 multi-scenario analyses and machine learning methods. To address this, this study utilised MODIS NDVI remote sensing data, historical data from the CMIP6 BCC-CSM2-MR model, and monthly temperature, precipitation, and snow cover data for three SSP scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5) and systematically analysed the spatiotemporal differentiation characteristics of NDVI in the Keriya River Basin and its multiscale coupling relationships with climatic factors. A multi-model selection and forecasting framework was developed, integrating feature engineering with the XGBoost machine learning algorithm. The study innovatively introduced a physically constrained scenario scaling factor based on historical correlations and future climate mean values, thereby addressing the bias where machine learning models’ predicted NDVI means converged across different SSP scenarios. This enabled the monthly estimation of NDVI under various emission pathways from 2015 to 2100. The results indicate: (1) During the historical period (2001–2024), the basin’s annual average NDVI showed an overall slight increase; the annual pattern was unimodal, peaking in July and reaching its trough in January–February; NDVI was highest in summer and lowest in winter. (2) NDVI initially increases and then decreases with altitude; the highest NDVI values are observed in the 3000–4000 m altitude band; in the mid-altitude band, NDVI rose significantly after 2010 and peaked in 2017; the low-altitude band exhibits the greatest interannual stability. (3) During the historical period, both temperature and precipitation in the catchment exhibited high levels of fluctuation, with annual mean temperatures ranging from 1.90 to 3.92 °C and annual precipitation ranging from 434.5 to 621.0 mm. NDVI showed a strong positive correlation with temperature (R = 0.86), a relatively strong negative correlation with snow cover (R = −0.71), and virtually no correlation with precipitation, indicating that upstream snowmelt is heat-driven and water-dependent. (4) Under the future SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5 scenarios, temperature increases are projected to be 0.83 °C, 2.68 °C, and 5.35 °C, respectively, whilst snow cover is projected to decrease by 2.0%, 14.3%, and 34.0%, respectively; The multi-year mean NDVI values predicted using the XGBoost model (validation R2 = 0.9097) are 0.0726, 0.0683, and 0.0690, respectively, all characterised by strong seasonal fluctuations. Given that these future projections are based on a single CMIP6 model and a statistical forecasting framework, they are subject to a degree of uncertainty; however, the low-emission scenario (SSP1-2.6) still indicates a trend that is relatively more conducive to maintaining vegetation stability in this region and may provide preliminary scientific guidance for water resource management along the southern margin of the Tarim Basin.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091595

Authors: Yuan Lu Jiaqian Yu Ziye Na Xiaoran Wen

The widening gap between planning blueprints and actual implementation outcomes in transit-oriented development (TOD) has become a critical concern in China’s rail transit expansion. Using Xiamen Metro Line 1 as a case study, this paper develops a three-tiered spatial framework (corridor, planning district, and station catchment) to evaluate plan conformance across land-use efficiency (LUE), category (LUC), and intensity (LUI). The results reveal that, despite generally high implementation levels, significant deviations from statutory targets persist, characterized by cross-island spatial polarization, structural imbalances, and localized extreme outliers. Key bottlenecks include delayed conversion of low-efficiency land, functional mismatches, and overall implementation stagnation in off-island areas. Crucially, these deviations do not merely denote planning failure but expose a profound governance gap between static blueprint regulations and the dynamic complexities of TOD execution. To bridge this divide, this study proposes an integrated governance framework emphasizing context-adaptive implementation models, synchronized “transit–land–planning” institutional mechanisms, and lifecycle-wide adaptive policies.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091594

Authors: Eduardo Villavicencio-Pinto

This article exposes how Chile permits photovoltaic plants on its land of highest agricultural capability, withdrawing the material basis of long-term food security for at least a generation, in full legality. Linking environmental-assessment records, fiscal cadastral microdata and the CIREN capability survey, I document 135 approved plants sited dominantly on Class I–III soil, 5836 declared hectares; elite soil covers 18.2% of the farmed landscape yet hosts 42.8% of the approved plants, 2.35 times its share. That the system processes this tension without friction reveals the socio-legal infrastructure of property, whose dephysicalisation erases the land’s food-producing capability from every register of decision. The regime fuses three securities (legal certainty, juridical security and land-tenure security), serving as the foundation of the energy transition. The fusion shields the proprietor and confines all protection to the voluntary, visible in the compensations proponents offer when the Agriculture and Livestock Service (SAG) objects. A documentary census of the permitting files supplies the new evidence. The SAG objects in writing to the loss of productive agricultural land in 64 of 136 approved files, and no objection prevents approval; in 21 a favourable qualification is issued with the objection still standing. The Service refutes, with measurements of its own, proponents who declare their soil poor, up to Class I, and the projects are approved nonetheless. If rural land is to be protected as a public good, voluntariness must yield to obligation.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091593

Authors: Yifan Li Sidong Zhao

Urban green space supply (UGSS) is a core component of territorial spatial planning, and the advancement of the park city initiative has been temporally associated with a systematic transformation. Differentiation in UGSS is a comprehensive issue concerning ecological environment, public welfare, and high-quality urban development, and it is closely related to the achievement of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11.7. This study employs a comprehensive approach combining spatiotemporal dynamic analysis (Mann–Kendall trend test and Theil–Sen slope estimation), differentiation measures (Gini coefficient and Theil index), and the explainable machine learning SHAP model to conduct a large-sample empirical analysis of 1760 towns in China from 2015 to 2024. The findings show the following: First, park city construction corresponds to notable spatiotemporal evolution of UGSS in China’s towns, with approximately 85% of towns showing a significant rise. Second, park city construction coincides with a reduction in differentiation in both the outcomes and processes of UGSS in China’s towns, with both the Gini coefficient and Theil index declining to varying degrees. An analysis of the Theil index further confirms that the observed changes in the Theil index are more pronounced in disadvantaged towns, and the differentiation in UGSS originates more from intra-regional disparities than from inter-regional gaps. Third, the differentiation in UGSS shows deep structural correlates, with the associations of socio-economic and natural ecological factors exhibiting various complex nonlinear associations such as inverted U-shape, arc shape, U-shape, and wave shape. These associations are specifically manifested as mixed directionality of associations, hierarchical intensity of associations, threshold-based evolutionary pathways, geographic spatial heterogeneity, and interactive relationships among factors. This study recommends that the policy design of park city construction and green space system planning should promptly establish a new model combining situational response, threshold management, and collaborative governance. The nonlinear and interpretable analytical paradigm constructed in this study holds significant value for achieving precise supply and equitable sharing of green space resources.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091592

Authors: Margot Hurlbert Hooman Meghdadi Amber J. Fletcher Erin Hillis Pradeep Ranjan Doley Barman Adhika Ezra Kerri Finlay

While drought and flood are still predominantly described as separate hazards responded to by agricultural producers, research in Saskatchewan, Canada with dryland agricultural producers documents the adaptation synergistically experiencing and responding to compound events of drought and flood through innovative water management techniques. A total of 132 agricultural producers and associated water decision-makers in the Saskatchewan River Basin, a semi-arid dryland basin, provided deep insight into adaptations to the compound risks of climate change through interviews and focus groups. Increasingly in south Saskatchewan, drought and floods are being experienced in the same year, in the same region, often at the same time and even on the same farm. While historically agricultural producers in the southwest experience drought and the southeast flood, over the last few years drought has migrated to the southeast and flood to the southwest. Two lakes have increased in size and volume across the river basin. While interviewees predominantly identified drought as the most extreme due to total loss of production, the impact of floods was identified as particularly damaging to infrastructure. This social science research makes a theoretical contribution to climate adaptation science concerning the experience and response to compound climate impacts of drought and flood by agricultural producers in the semi-arid plains of Saskatchewan. More research focusing on the synergistic experience of compound events and hydrological, socio-economic and institutional advancement of adaptation processes is needed.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091591

Authors: Fazhi Li Gaoli Zhu Zhen Chen Zegan Xiao Wenxi Zhang

The coupling coordination of urbanization and urban resilience is a key issue for achieving sustainable urban development. Taking 49 prefecture-level and above cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH), the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and the Pearl River Delta (PRD)—China’s three major coastal urban agglomerations—as research objects, this paper constructs an evaluation index system for urbanization and urban resilience, and employs the CRITIC–entropy weight composite method, the coupling coordination degree model and kernel density estimation to measure the evolutionary characteristics of coupling coordination between urbanization and urban resilience in the three agglomerations during 2013–2023, and further identifies the key influencing factors using a panel fixed-effects model. The results show that (1) the coupling coordination degree of the three urban agglomerations increased continuously, with the PRD taking the lead in 2023 (0.6650), the YRD ranking second (0.6315) and the BTH ranking third (0.5627); however, their coupling coordination paths diverged markedly, specifically manifesting as a catch-up convergence pattern in the BTH, a balanced advancement pattern in the YRD and a polarization-divergence pattern in the PRD. (2) Opening-up and digital economy development are robust positive drivers of the coupling coordination level, and their positive effects are largely universal across regions; urban population agglomeration and government intervention constitute significant negative constraints, among which the inhibitory effect of government intervention exhibits genuine regional heterogeneity, being most prominent in the YRD, followed by the PRD, while failing the significance test in the BTH; technological innovation fails to pass the significance test; the full-sample effect of spatial structure is insignificant, but its influence exhibits significant regional heterogeneity, with a significantly positive association in the PRD. This study systematically reveals the regional differentiation rules governing the synergistic evolution of urbanization and resilience in the three urban agglomerations, providing empirical support for differentiated policies to promote the deep integrated development of urbanization and urban resilience.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091590

Authors: Pasquale Capuano Barbara De Lucia Giovanni Russo Giuseppe Ruggiero

Urban green spaces play an important role in supporting ecosystem functions, landscape connectivity, and urban resilience; however, their potential contribution may be constrained by fragmentation, inadequate maintenance, and limited integration among spatial planning instruments. This study develops a preliminary green infrastructure (GI) planning framework for the municipality of Noicattaro (Bari, Apulia, Italy) by integrating planning provisions with the observed condition and spatial distribution of existing public green spaces. A GIS-based spatial analysis, complemented by field surveys, assessed 89 public green spaces for compliance with planning requirements and maintenance status. The analysis also considered the spatial structure of the surrounding peri-urban landscape, including the karstic dry valleys (Lame), agricultural land uses, and relevant landscape and hydrogeological planning constraints. The results show that only 20.2% of the surveyed green spaces met both planning and maintenance criteria, whereas 78.4% fell into categories characterised by planning non-compliance, inadequate maintenance, or both. These findings highlight potential gaps between formal planning provisions and the observed condition and management of the municipal green system. The analysis of the Lame further revealed a predominance of agricultural land over natural vegetation, emphasising the importance of considering the wider agricultural and peri-urban landscape when identifying potential ecological connections. Based on the combined spatial and field assessment, a preliminary GI network framework was developed around core ecological areas, buffer zones, and strategically located green spaces, with the aim of identifying potential spatial connections and areas for further investigation. Overall, the study demonstrates the potential of integrating planning analysis, GIS-based assessment, and field observations as a screening and decision-support approach for more context-sensitive GI planning in peri-urban Mediterranean landscapes. The proposed framework should be regarded as a preliminary planning proposal requiring further validation through biodiversity, ecosystem-service, accessibility, and implementation assessments.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091589

Authors: Ahmet Guntel Arif Cagdas Aydinoglu Suleyman Sisman

Buildings account for a substantial share of global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, highlighting the need for accurate large-scale building energy assessment. However, in Türkiye, the limited availability of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) and detailed 3D architectural building models restricts comprehensive urban energy analyses. This study proposes a novel GIS and Urban Digital Twin (UDT)-based methodology integrating stereo photogrammetry and Machine Learning (ML) to predict annual building energy consumption and evaluate rooftop solar energy potential. Initially, EPCs were integrated with architectural and photogrammetric 3D building models, while building energy parameters were validated using the BEP-TR2 calculation methodology. Validated datasets were then employed to train and compare Random Forest, XGBoost, CatBoost, and Artificial Neural Network models. For buildings lacking detailed architectural models, geometric attributes were extracted from stereo photogrammetric aerial imagery to enable energy consumption prediction. XGBoost achieved the best predictive performance, yielding an R2 of 0.82 using architectural GML data and an R2 of 0.83 using photogrammetrically derived data. Subsequently, rooftop solar radiation potential was estimated and compared with predicted annual energy consumption to assess building self-sufficiency. Results revealed that 27% of buildings were fully self-sufficient, while 20% achieved 50–70% self-sufficiency. The proposed framework demonstrates the potential of integrating UDTs, GIS, stereo photogrammetry, and ML to support scalable urban energy planning, renewable energy integration, and sustainable decision-making.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091588

Authors: Carme Bellet Sanfeliu Jose Lasala Fortea Mario Hernández-Trejo

Urban fragmentation is often approached through residential patterns, spatial distance and the uneven distribution of urban resources. However, in Southern European medium-sized cities, where socially contrasting neighbourhoods may be located in close physical proximity, fragmentation may operate through less visible everyday mechanisms. This article examines how selective spatial practices reflect and may reproduce unequal access to places, activities and opportunities, and how this perspective may inform debates on spatial governance and urban planning. Drawing on GPS tracking, in-depth interviews and mental maps, it analyses daily mobility, activity spaces and lived spatial boundaries in two socially contrasting neighbourhoods of Lleida, Spain. The article contributes to debates on urban inequality, understood as the structurally conditioned unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, capacities and recognition by conceptualising differentiated everyday geographies as both manifestations of this inequality and mechanisms through which it may be reproduced. The findings show how spatial practices and cognitive representations structure urban experience beyond residential segregation: physical proximity does not necessarily translate into shared urban experience: as some participants develop broader and socially legitimised relations with the city, whereas others display more restricted and symbolically bounded patterns of urban engagement. The article therefore advances practised accessibility as an analytical and planning perspective that incorporates the temporal, modal, cognitive and symbolic conditions that shape everyday access to urban opportunities beyond their informal availability.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091587

Authors: Michael J. Evans Richard W. Stoffle

Heritage management has traditionally relied on mapped boundaries. However, many traditional cultural places derive their significance from relationships, uses, memories, and responsibilities that extend beyond any fixed demarcation. This article conceptualizes this mismatch as a boundary problem: the tension between administrative systems based on fixed sites and the broader cultural geographies recognized by Indigenous communities and other place-based practitioners. Drawing on research from ecology, geography, anthropology, planning, and ontology, the article contends that this issue is not merely a matter of incomplete documentation but constitutes a fundamental structural challenge: integrating layered, relational places into legal and management systems designed for fixed parcels. Four types of boundaries are identified, each generating distinctive tensions in heritage work. The article proposes practical strategies, including representing gradients, employing flexible and co-defined boundaries, and shifting protective authority to tribal sovereignty and co-stewardship when imposed lines do not correspond to the places they are intended to protect. The analysis draws its regulatory framework and case material from the United States, but the underlying boundary problem is not limited to US practice; the article’s Limitations discussion situates the same structural mismatch in international heritage and protected-area governance.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091586

Authors: Lu Lu Yao Xiao Juanyu Wu Yongmei Xiong

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) are widely measured but rarely attributed to the specific landscape elements that generate them. We coupled element-level image recognition with service-level text analysis across 20,447 reviews and 18,997 photographs from three social media platforms covering 15 national-, provincial-, and municipal-level forest parks in Guangzhou, China (2020–2024). A 2660-term dictionary quantified nine CES; a fine-tuned deep learning classifier identified 28 landscape elements; multiple correspondence analysis described the element-service structure and ridge regression tested associations within four case parks. Natural elements aligned with ecological, aesthetic, and inspirational services and built elements with cultural, social, and wellness services, but two results qualify that division. First, individual elements were associated with different services in opposite directions: seasonal forest with higher aesthetic appreciation but lower recreation, water features with higher aesthetic value but lower inspiration. Second, the mapping differed across the four case parks rather than holding constant; in the municipal case park, only built facilities positively predicted social interaction. These four parks are illustrative exemplars rather than representative samples of their tiers. Dynamic biological elements (birds 0.43%, insects 0.12%, fish 0.08%) ranked lowest of all 28 elements. These are descriptive associations awaiting mechanistic explanation; on that reading, planning for CES would be better organized around intended services than element inventories, calibrated to the individual park.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091585

Authors: Hanlong Gu Yue Cao Hongqiao Hao Yun Gao Chongyang Huan Ming Cheng

Against a backdrop of growing rural differentiation and ongoing rural revitalization efforts, understanding how farmers develop intentions to relinquish their rural homesteads is essential for improving context-sensitive policy design. Drawing on survey data from 407 farmers in the pilot areas of homestead system reform in Shenyang City, this study proposes a “household capital endowment-value cognition/perceived risk-coping capacity-homestead withdrawal intention” framework. A structural equation model (SEM) is used to estimate both the direct effects of multidimensional household capital endowment and its indirect effects through the two mediating variables. Multi-group analyses are further conducted across generations, farm household pluriactivity, and village types. The results indicate that human and economic capital are positively associated with homestead withdrawal intention, whereas natural and social capital are negatively associated with it. Value cognition and perceived risk-coping capacity mediate several pathways: the former weakens withdrawal intention, whereas the latter strengthens it. The multi-group analyses further suggest variation in within-group significance patterns and coefficient estimates across generations, farm household pluriactivity, and village types. These findings highlight the need for differentiated homestead withdrawal policies that are responsive to farmers’ capital endowments and value–risk perceptions, thereby promoting the productive use of rural land resources while safeguarding farmers’ livelihood security.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091584

Authors: Kaiyan Li Jihong Qin Shuangchao Wang Yujia Tang Hui Sun Junxi Li Tongyao Wu

Shrub encroachment in alpine grasslands alters soil biogeochemical processes, but reported soil responses remain inconsistent and conflicting among studies. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate ten physical and chemical alongside biological soil properties. Evaluated indicators covered soil water content (SWC) and bulk density (BD) alongside soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN). They also included ammonium (NH4+-N) and total phosphorus (TP) and pH alongside microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and nitrogen (MBN) and phosphorus (MBP). In total, 66 peer-reviewed articles provided 175 paired observations across four continental alpine regions, with most studies conducted in High Mountain Asia. Most compiled studies evaluated topsoil chemical properties, while non-nitrogen-fixing shrubs dominated the dataset. Shrub encroachment significantly stimulated MBC (+7.59%) and MBN (+5.44%) across both functional groups. TN increased significantly (+2.08%) driven entirely by nitrogen-fixing shrubs (+7.57%). Nitrogen-fixing shrubs also induced rhizosphere acidification (−1.87%) and increased MBP (+14.41%). Non-nitrogen-fixing shrubs significantly reduced BD (−5.67%), while bulk SOC (+0.15%) and TP (−0.31%) showed no pooled change. SOC responses diverged sharply at the genus level, increasing under Dasiphora (+6.58%) but declining under Salix (−6.88%) and Vaccinium (−11.62%). Soil sampling depth and shrub genus identity exerted primary controls on soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics. Current evidence concentrates heavily on Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau topsoils, leaving critical geographic and subsoil data gaps across global cold alpine biomes. Given functional divergence and depth stratification, sustainable alpine management must adopt shrub regulation differentiated by functional traits, linking microscale microbial processes with whole ecosystem carbon and nitrogen cycling.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091583

Authors: Ruying Zhong Xunqiang Gong Yufeng Zhu Nuoming Xu Juhao Deng Yuanyan Zhang Meng Zhang

As a major economic corridor and ecological barrier in China, the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) has experienced substantial land-use changes that have significantly influenced regional landscape patterns and sustainability. However, the long-term evolution of landscape patterns and their driving mechanisms remain insufficiently understood, particularly considering the spatial heterogeneity among different regions. Based on land-use datasets from 1993 to 2023, this study integrated land-use transfer analysis, grid-based landscape metrics, and the Geodetector model to examine the spatiotemporal evolution of landscape patterns and their driving factors across the YREB. The results showed that cultivated land decreased from 34.63% to 32.78%, forest land increased from 51.51% to 52.36%, and built-up land expanded from 1.36% to 3.61%. Rapid urban expansion was the primary driver of landscape pattern change, leading to increased fragmentation and landscape complexity. Significant regional differences were observed, with relatively stable landscape structures in the upper reaches, transitional changes in the middle reaches, and intensive landscape reorganization in the lower reaches. Both natural and socioeconomic factors influenced landscape evolution, while their interactions generally exerted stronger explanatory power than individual factors. These findings provide valuable support for ecological conservation, land-use optimization, and territorial spatial planning in the YREB.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091582

Authors: Ruslan Kultemirov Dinara Molzhigitova Elmira Mursalimova Aizhan Zhildikbayeva Bibigul Dabylova Gulimshat Shakirova Maxat Shakhabayev Gulsim Aitkhozhayeva Akerke Bekturganova

Existing state cadastral land valuation methodologies often focus exclusively on economic factors while ignoring geo-environmental hazards. This paper proposes a mechanism for incorporating seismic risk indicators and environmental degradation into the cadastral model to improve pricing accuracy. Using four cadastral blocks in the Bostandyk District of Almaty as a case study, the authors applied MAVT and AHP methods, integrating seismic microzonation data and satellite monitoring (Sentinel-2, Landsat 8) to calculate a comprehensive risk coefficient (Krisk). According to spatial analysis data, the presence of natural hazards serves as a valid criterion for reducing the cadastral valuation of vulnerable land plots by 20–45%. The proposed methodology ensures a balance between market valuation and environmental safety, representing a scalable tool for urban land management in seismically active zones.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091581

Authors: Diress Tsegaye Jonathan Rizzi Ulrike Bayr Misganu Debella-Gilo Richard Adade Denis W. Aheto Belachew Gizachew

Extensive ecosystem degradation along the coastal areas of Ghana highlights the need for targeted landscape restoration. This study identified areas with high restoration potential by evaluating environmental, climatic, and anthropogenic determinants of mangrove distribution. We tested multiple habitat suitability models, including Random Forest (RF), Generalized Additive Model (GAM), Generalized Linear Model (GLM), Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt), and an ensemble approach. Mangrove occurrence records were compiled from field observations, drone-derived data, and publicly available biodiversity and mapped datasets. The ensemble GAM-RF model emerged as the most robust model, with the highest predictive performance. Hydrological and topographic factors were the strongest predictors of mangrove habitat suitability, particularly proximity to rivers and the coastline, low-elevation terrain (<5 m asl), and temperature-related bioclimatic variables, while precipitation metrics and anthropogenic proxies played secondary roles. Using the ensemble approach, the estimated potentially suitable habitat ranged from 417 to 1313 km2, indicating that substantial areas remain available for mangrove restoration. These findings align with ongoing national and international restoration initiatives, including the coastal restoration plan, and have important implications for coastal protection, carbon sequestration, fisheries habitat, and local livelihoods. Our findings demonstrate that multi-model habitat suitability analyses can guide spatially targeted, and evidence-based restoration planning.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091580

Authors: Hongming Liu Zhengwang Zhang Wenjie Liu Kun Zhou Jianqiang Li

The expansion and spatial concentration of livestock and poultry farming have intensified the mismatch between manure nutrient pressures and regional environmental carrying capacity, creating persistent obstacles to the sector’s green transformation. Using a balanced panel dataset covering 21 prefecture-level cities and autonomous prefectures in Sichuan Province from 2015 to 2024, we evaluate theoretical environmental carrying capacity (ECC), production comparative advantage (PCA), environmental comparative advantage (ECA), and comprehensive comparative advantage (CCA) under nitrogen and phosphorus constraints. The framework considers cropland as well as the potential nutrient assimilation capacity of grassland and forestland under suitable manure application conditions. We measure ECA by comparing residual carrying capacity per unit of actual livestock population with the provincial benchmark. We construct CCA using a signed geometric mean that preserves the direction of environmental constraints when ECA is negative. Prefecture-level spatial patterns are mapped using polygon-based choropleths. The Northwest Sichuan Ecological Economic Zone and the Panxi Economic Zone show the strongest PCA, while Zigong and Dazhou also retain production advantages outside these core areas. Under the nitrogen constraint, Ya’an and Panzhihua record negative ECA values. Under the phosphorus constraint, high ECA values are concentrated in Ganzi, Aba, and Liangshan. CCA is concentrated in western Sichuan and displays a clear spatial gradient, with the Northwest Sichuan Ecological Economic Zone ranking first under both nutrient constraints. These patterns indicate that the spatial layout of livestock and poultry farming should be better aligned with the existing production base, land-based nutrient assimilation capacity, and ecological protection constraints. Differentiated regional regulation, species-specific specialization, and coordinated manure recycling across land types can improve the fit between livestock production and environmental carrying conditions. The framework provides a quantitative basis for spatially differentiated livestock planning in Sichuan and can be adapted to other mountainous agro-pastoral transition regions through locally calibrated technical parameters and land-use assumptions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091579

Authors: Jessica L. Striley Jane Southworth Brian Child David Keellings

Understanding land-cover change in savanna systems requires approaches that account for ecological gradients and human land use across multiple spatial scales. This study examines land-cover dynamics in Niassa Special Reserve (NSR), Mozambique, and its surrounding buffer from 2000 to 2024. Land cover was classified from satellite imagery using random forest, achieving ~98% overall accuracy, and change was quantified across landscape, management, and local scales. Model robustness was assessed across 1000 iterations, and classification uncertainty was propagated through 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations. Results show a shift toward denser vegetation within NSR, with increases in open and dense woodland and declines in grass-dominated areas. Closed-canopy forest increased by approximately 552 km2 within NSR (95% MCSI: 375–586 km2), but declined by approximately 1549 km2 in the surrounding buffer (95% MCSI: −1499 to −1226 km2). Community-use areas within NSR collectively lost approximately 969 km2 of closed-canopy forest (95% MCSI: −1014 to −954 km2). Dominant transitions occurred between adjacent vegetation classes, indicating structural change rather than discrete categorical conversion. These results indicate that protection is associated with greater persistence and expansion of woody vegetation at the landscape scale, while localized human use areas show contrasting trajectories.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091578

Authors: Yuan Yuan Yaya Song Qi Fu Xiaohan Yu

Overseas land investment has emerged as one of the most complex human–environment system challenges of the twenty-first century, yet its evolving role under global carbon-neutrality targets remains theoretically under-specified. This study conducts a systematic literature review and bibliometrically assisted analysis of 145 English and 38 Chinese publications (2008–2026) to map the intellectual landscape, identify divergent research priorities, and examine the implications of carbon-credit-based land investment. Our analysis reveals three distinct evolutionary phases, extending from conceptual emergence and mechanism analysis to interdisciplinary expansion. It also identifies three parallel divergences between Chinese- and English-language research: contrasting research stances, thematic priorities, and governance imaginaries. These divergences are rooted in China’s transitional position within a Western-dominated discourse system. The findings suggest that China’s transition from rule adaptation to active governance participation is important, and that priority pathways include property-rights protection, carbon-standard alignment, and polycentric governance frameworks capable of balancing food security, host-country development rights, and global ecological justice. These findings provide both theoretical synthesis and actionable directions for governing land-based carbon markets in an era of geopolitical fragmentation.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091577

Authors: Hossein Azadi Eric Vanhaute

In the original publication [...]

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091576

Authors: Liwen Shao Le Ma Linjie Yao Yanyun Zhao Qing Zhang

Regional ecological security patterns provide a spatial basis for coordinating ecosystem conservation, restoration, and sustainable land management in ecologically fragile basins. However, the joint consideration of ecosystem multifunctionality, landscape connectivity, and existing protected areas remains limited in many ecological security pattern studies. Taking the Inner Mongolia section of the Yellow River Basin (IMYRB) as the study area, this study assessed nine provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem services using the 2020 land-use map and other spatial datasets. Ecological sources were identified through multi-service hotspot analysis, while ecological corridors and pinch points were delineated using the minimum cumulative resistance model and circuit theory; the identified sources were further compared spatially with existing nature reserves. The analysis identified 33 ecological sources covering 34,264.28 km2 (23.47% of the basin) and 80 ecological corridors. A pronounced east–west contrast was evident: ecological sources in the east were generally larger and more aggregated, whereas those in the west were smaller and more fragmented. Key pinch points were concentrated in narrow linkage zones between adjacent ecological sources in the eastern IMYRB, indicating critical connectivity bottlenecks. Only 9.7% of the ecological source area overlapped with existing nature reserves, revealing a substantial conservation gap. These findings highlight the need to prioritize the protection of uncovered ecological sources and maintain critical connectivity zones, providing a spatial basis for protected-area optimization and ecological restoration planning in the IMYRB.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091575

Authors: Mengfan Li Mengqin Yu

The urban–rural income gap remains a major obstacle to achieving common prosperity and poses a key challenge for developing countries undergoing modernization. Smart city initiatives may reshape wealth creation and income distribution while promoting urban development. Using panel data for 41 prefecture-level cities in the Yangtze River Delta from 2003 to 2024, and employing a double machine learning approach, this study takes the smart city pilot policies as a quasi-natural experiment to assess the impact of smart city pilot policies on the urban–rural income gap. The results indicate that the policy has overall widened the urban–rural income gap in treated cities. This effect is achieved by enhancing urban innovation resilience and promoting industrial structure upgrading, which in turn further boost urban residents’ income. Notably, in regions with higher levels of human capital and greater outward openness, the income-widening effect of the policy becomes statistically insignificant and even exhibits a tendency to narrow the urban–rural income divide. Furthermore, a spatial spillover analysis reveals that the policy’s impact exhibits significant spatial spillover characteristics. These findings provide empirical evidence and policy insights for refining smart city pilot policies and accelerating the advancement of common prosperity.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091574

Authors: Rui Yang Xiaodong Li Haibo Hu Jiaxing Liu Jiaxuan Liu Zhirong Lin Li Zhu Lingyao Xu

Clarifying ecosystem service interactions under urbanization facilitates integrated ecological governance. This study took the rapidly urbanizing Su-Xi-Chang agglomeration in the Yangtze River Delta as the research area and applied the InVEST model to evaluate spatiotemporal variations in carbon storage, soil retention, water yield, and habitat quality from 2000 to 2023. The coupling coordination degree model and self-organizing map model were adopted to analyze urbanization–ecosystem interactions and the evolution of ecosystem service bundles, while the GeoDetector model was used to identify key socio-ecological drivers. The results reveal significant spatiotemporal divergences among the four ecosystem services. Carbon storage and habitat quality declined, while water yield and soil retention increased. Carbon storage and soil retention hotspots were persistently concentrated in the Yixing–Liyang Mountainous Area. Pairwise correlations further show that the synergy between water yield and soil retention strengthened over time, whereas their trade-offs with habitat quality intensified. The coupling coordination between urbanization and ecosystem services remained at a primary level yet exhibited a clear trajectory from imbalance toward optimization after 2010. Four ecosystem service bundles were identified, among which the urban-function-dominated bundle expanded by 190.39% from 2000 to 2023, indicating progressive spatial lock-in of urban land use. Differentiated zoning and targeted restoration strategies are proposed to reconcile urban development and ecological conservation. This study offers scientific references for ecological spatial optimization and refined ecological management in the Yangtze River Delta.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091573

Authors: Giovanni Signorello Marika Cerro Laura Giuffrida

The designation of protected areas depends not only on ecological criteria but also on social acceptability. This study investigates the factors associated with ex ante support for the proposed Iblei National Park (Italy) through a survey of institutional stakeholders—public bodies, category associations, professional orders, and environmental associations—who are directly involved in or affected by the designation process. Focusing on environmental worldviews, place identity, and perceived economic benefits, the analysis combines parsimonious composite indices with exploratory ordinal regression models. Descriptive and associative results show that environmental attitudes and place identity are positively associated with stated support in baseline specifications, although neither association reaches conventional levels of statistical significance. When perceived economic benefits are added, they show the largest association with stated support among the variables considered, while the estimated associations of environmental values and place identity are attenuated to magnitudes indistinguishable from zero. The association of perceived economic benefits is stable in sign and magnitude across specifications, though its statistical strength varies with how the outcome is operationalised. These patterns, drawn from a small, near-complete population of institutional stakeholders, suggest that value- and identity-based orientations shape a general predisposition toward conservation, while explicit stakeholder endorsement is more closely associated with expectations of local economic benefits. We interpret these findings as exploratory evidence on distinct, and possibly complementary, channels of ex ante social legitimacy, to be corroborated by larger and mixed-method research designs.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091572

Authors: Dongqing Zhang Zhuoyang Jiang Jiaxin Xue Yi Wan

Urban parks in city centers are often assessed by residential proximity, but visits in districts with mixed land uses also occur between work, shopping, services, and other daily activities. A nearby park may remain difficult to use when its entrances and internal paths do not align with the routes people take to reach it. This study presents Park-BIND (Park Boundary-Opening Identification and Network-Based Decision Model). It connects the activities before and after a park visit with complete walking routes, candidate feasibility, exhaustive optimization of opening sets, and space syntax analysis. Applied to two parks in the central area of Shanghai, the model evaluated and reviewed entrances and opening options suited to each site. Minimum opening sets designed to achieve 80% of the feasible route benefit (S80) captured 85.40% in Xujiahui Park and 82.42% in Xiangyang Park. High overall efficiency did not ensure balanced benefits. Balanced solutions raised the activity context receiving the least benefit above 90% of its feasible benefit in both parks. The opening scenarios also changed Integration, Choice concentration, and exposure to structurally important paths. These indicators describe potential movement patterns, not observed pedestrian flows or congestion. The findings support a phased strategy: begin with a small set of feasible and effective connections, add openings where needed to serve activity contexts more evenly, and reserve options with higher benefits or conditional feasibility for later action. Park access should therefore connect routes from city streets through public entrances to usable paths inside the park, rather than rely on proximity or entrance numbers alone.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091571

Authors: Juan Urdánigo-Zambrano Bolier Torres Carmen De-Pablos-Heredero Robinson J. Herrera-Feijoo Federico Sinche Chele Antón García

Agroforestry integrates environmental, climatic, productive, and socioeconomic dimensions. The position of rural livelihoods within its scientific structure remains still characterized. This study evaluated the temporal evolution, conceptual organization, domain representation, and geographical and economic distribution of global agroforestry research using 5711 Scopus-indexed journal articles published between 1979 and 2025. Scientific production increased markedly, with 4133 articles published during 2013 to 2025, accounting for 72.37% of the corpus. Thematic evolution showed a shift from early agronomic topics toward biodiversity, ecosystem services, carbon sequestration, and climate change. Multiple Correspondence Analysis of harmonized Author Keywords identified five clusters, with the first two dimensions explaining 39.76% of total inertia. Livelihood-related terms were embedded within the central agroforestry and sustainability cluster under the analytical configuration applied, and this pattern was maintained after excluding corpus-defining search-anchor terms. Production, silvopastoral, and agronomic management had the highest proportional contribution (57.92%), whereas environmental and biodiversity (43.88%), livelihoods and socioeconomic (43.81%), and climate, carbon and soil dimensions (42.50%) occurred at comparable proportions. Fractional affiliation analysis indicated that all domains occurred across regions and income groups, with livelihoods and socioeconomic research showing larger fractional contributions from Africa and lower-middle-income countries.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091570

Authors: Shaochang Liu Siyuan Ma Yanbo Cao Xiaoli Chen

Lanping County, located on the southeastern margin of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, is a key component of the “Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan” World Natural Heritage Site, where widespread landslides pose significant threats to local communities. However, landslide spatial patterns and susceptibility assessments in this county remain poorly understood. This study compiled a detailed landslide inventory through high-resolution remote sensing interpretation, employing the certainty factor (CF) model to map landslide susceptibility and analyze spatial distribution patterns. The results show that a total of 1792 landslides were identified, predominantly distributed at elevations of 1500–3000 m, on slopes of 15–45° with aspects of 180–210°, and in areas with topographic relief of 150–450 m and annual rainfall >925 mm. Most landslides are located within 750 m of rivers, 4000 m of faults, and 1500 m of roads. The Jurassic (J) stratigraphic unit exhibited the highest landslide area density (LAD = 0.32). Morphometric analysis revealed that most landslides display longitudinal morphologies, with heights of 50–265 m and travel distances of 25–200 m, exhibiting allometric scaling relationships with volume. The mean reach angle of 31.8° was higher than that of Dongchuan District (29°). Susceptibility mapping indicated that the very low, low, moderate, high, and very high susceptibility zones account for 12.23%, 26.46%, 26.97%, 19.98%, and 14.36% of the study area, respectively. The high and very high susceptibility zones together comprise 34.34%, concentrated along the Lancang River main stem and its tributaries. These findings enhance understanding of landslide spatial distribution and morphological characteristics along the southeastern margin of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, providing a scientific basis for regional landslide management and sustainable land-use planning.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091569

Authors: Enquan Zhao Xiaodong Liu Jie Bai Jingtao Shi Ming Li Shisong Yuan

Rapid urbanization has significantly altered land use patterns in Deqing County, placing increasing pressure on its ecosystem. This study establishes a Driving Force–Pressure–State–Impact (DPSI) framework and selects ten indicators to evaluate ecological sensitivity for 2014, 2019, and 2024. It then couples this framework with the PLUS model to simulate land use and ecological sensitivity changes under the following three 2034 scenarios: natural development (ND), ecological protection (EP), and urban development (UD). Results show that ecological sensitivity exhibits a “high west, low east” spatial pattern and it fluctuated with an initial decline followed by a rise from 2014 to 2024, though the overall trend was a slow decrease. Land use type (weight 0.342), distance to rivers (weight 0.191), and distance to roads (weight 0.146) were the dominant influencing factors, together depicting Deqing’s ecological landscape of “western forests, eastern farmlands, and dense water networks”. The PLUS model demonstrated good validation accuracy (Kappa = 0.81), and the contributions of driving factors shifted over time. Multi-scenario simulation indicates that the ecological protection (EP) scenario is more suitable for sustainable urban development. We recommend implementing differentiated ecological control zones, integrating sensitivity evaluation into planning decisions, and improving the differentiated ecological compensation mechanism.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091568

Authors: Wenyi Mao Hongmei Yang Kunqi Liu Zhenlin Weng Yuhan Zhang

Cultivated land protection is fundamental to sustainable agricultural development, and reducing pesticide use is a key pathway for improving cultivated land quality. While policy-based agricultural insurance plays an important role in ensuring food security, whether it can promote pesticide-use reduction by influencing farmers’ production decisions remains unclear. Using survey data from 521 large-scale rice farmers in Jiangxi Province, China, this study takes the coverage depth of policy-based rice insurance as the core explanatory variable and employs ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation, the instrumental variable (IV) approach, and propensity score matching (PSM) to examine its effect on pesticide expenditure. Furthermore, the mediating roles of green technology adoption and farmland operational scale are explored. Specifically, for every one-unit increase in the coverage depth of policy-based rice insurance, pesticide expenditure decreases by 0.169 units. The results show that (1) greater insurance coverage depth significantly reduces pesticide expenditure among large-scale rice farmers, and this finding remains robust across a series of robustness tests and after addressing endogeneity concerns; (2) policy-based rice insurance promotes pesticide expenditure reduction by encouraging green technology adoption and expanding farmland operational scale; and (3) the pesticide-reduction effect is more pronounced among farmers with larger operational scales and more extensive farming experience. Based on these findings, efforts should be made to dynamically optimize the policy-based rice insurance system, strengthen its risk protection capacity, improve agricultural resource allocation efficiency, enhance its green incentive effects, and implement differentiated insurance support policies with more accurate compensation mechanisms.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091567

Authors: Yangzixian Yang Shuyu Wang Liangwei Xu Zhiying Li

Ecological sensitivity zoning is widely used in conservation planning, yet the interaction between land-use structure and landscape ecological risk across different sensitivity levels remains underexplored. We propose a dual-coupling framework—integrating (i) land-use composition and (ii) landscape patterns with ecological sensitivity—to assess landscape ecological risk. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) weighted sensitivity factors across five units (Levels 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9). The entropy weight method derived the Landscape Ecological Risk Index (LERI), while ridge regression and partial least squares regression (PLSR) identified key explanatory land-use variables. When land use is included in the sensitivity zoning, unexpectedly, the low-sensitivity zone (Level 3) exhibited the highest LERI (0.7588), whereas the non-sensitive zone (Level 1) recorded the lowest (0.1732). Ridge regression at the sensitivity-level scale revealed grassland (β = 0.255, VIP = 1.596) as the strongest positive correlate of LERI. Construction land showed a negative association at this scale (β = −0.433, VIP = 1.299). Grid-scale validation, however, indicated that the construction-land relationship is scale dependent, with grassland remaining the only factor consistently positive across both scales. PLSR validated these sensitivity-level trends, with grassland ranking highest in VIP across both models. Mechanistically, low-sensitivity zones feature a mixed mosaic of cropland, grassland, and construction land, intensifying landscape fragmentation. Conversely, non-sensitive zones, dominated by uniform construction land, exhibit landscape homogenization and correspondingly lower risk. This study challenges the traditional assumption that high ecological sensitivity inherently dictates high risk, emphasizing that land-use-driven landscape fragmentation in low-sensitivity zones warrants priority in ecological risk assessments.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091565

Authors: Mingli Wang Chenxiao Liu Dongxin Shen Yang Liu Yanglu Shi Mo Han Simon Bell

This study aims to systematically review the current applications and development trends of virtual reality (VR) technology in blue space research. It clarifies the main research methods, technical pathways, application scenarios, and existing knowledge gaps, and integrates the advantages of VR technology with the characteristics of blue spaces to provide references for future urban renewal and urban management research. Following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines, this study searched literature published up to January 2026 in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. A total of 41 original studies were included. A scoping review approach was adopted, employing descriptive statistics, cross-analysis, and classification methods. Existing studies mainly focus on blue space types such as rivers and lakes, with immersive head-mounted displays as the primary method. Most experiments adopt single session, short term exposure designs, suggesting potential positive effects of virtual blue spaces in reducing stress, improving mood, and restoring attention. Other studies demonstrate the application of VR technology in environmental education, design assessment, and urban management within blue spaces. As an indirect exposure and supplementary intervention tool, VR shows significant potential in blue space research, particularly in supporting vulnerable populations, large-scale urban planning and design assessment, and risk management. However, current research still faces several limitations, including insufficient multisensory integration, limited capability in simulating dynamic water environments, lack of methodological standardization, uneven sample distribution, absence of longitudinal studies, and weak interactive and social dimensions. The findings highlight the need for further research on these specific aspects.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091566

Authors: Daiva Tiškutė-Memgaudienė Marius Balčius Gintautas Mozgeris

Accurate retrospective, spatially explicit land-use reconstruction is essential for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) greenhouse gas accounting. However, the suitability of historical geospatial databases as information sources for such reconstruction has rarely been evaluated systematically. This study proposes an objective framework for assessing their correspondence with land-use observations from the Lithuanian National Forest Inventory (NFI). The analysis was based on a reference set of 16,351 systematically distributed NFI sample points and 19 database-year datasets covering the period 1990–2022. Original database classes were harmonised with the national hierarchical LULUCF classification, and correspondence was evaluated using overall accuracy, Cramér’s V and Normalized Mutual Information (NMI), complemented by category-specific representation, precision, recall and F1 score. Correspondence varied substantially among databases according to thematic scope, spatial completeness, mapping characteristics and land-use category. Among the multi-category databases, the Georeferenced Base Cadastre (GRPK) showed the strongest overall correspondence with the NFI reference data, whereas the CORINE Land Cover series provided the longest consistent multi-temporal record extending back to 1990. Forest land and settlements, as well as particularly water-related wetland classes, were represented comparatively reliably, while grassland remained the most difficult major land-use category to identify consistently. Temporal analysis showed that database performance also varied between database versions, while boundary sensitivity analysis demonstrated that observations near mapped polygon boundaries contributed to disagreement without changing the relative advantage of GRPK over CORINE. The results demonstrate that the evaluated historical databases provide substantial and complementary information for spatially explicit LULUCF land-use reconstruction and that the proposed framework provides a transparent basis for identifying and selecting suitable information sources according to land-use category and historical period.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091564

Authors: Han Wu Xiaohong Chen Wenhao Du Jinming Mou Xinyu Wang Yi Cui Donghong Xie Yujie Zhang

Policies designed to enhance agricultural resilience may produce unintended trade-offs among ecological, industrial, and social subsystems due to resource competition, structural constraints, and cross-subsystem feedback. This study conceptualizes these unintended effects as a “resilience compensation trap.” Taking Nenjiang City, Heilongjiang Province, China, as a case study, we integrate social–ecological systems theory with system dynamics modeling to examine the evolution of agricultural resilience from 2015 to 2035 under five scenarios: baseline development, ecological priority, industrial upgrading, talent revitalization, and comprehensive optimization. The results show that overall agricultural resilience increases slowly under the baseline scenario. Industrial upgrading raises overall resilience to 16.43 in 2035, representing an increase of 60.92% relative to the baseline, but reduces ecological resilience by 26.94%, thereby producing a clear cross-subsystem compensation effect. By contrast, the comprehensive optimization scenario increases overall resilience to 18.07, 76.98% above the baseline, while reducing conflicts among the three subsystems. These results indicate that single-objective interventions may activate negative feedback that offset their intended benefits. By operationalizing absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities as interacting variables and feedback loops, this study provides a process-based explanation of agricultural resilience trade-offs. The findings further highlight the importance of coordinated ecological, industrial, and social policies.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091563

Authors: Shuo Liu Lei Chen

The evolution of land-use types in mining cities is critical for balancing resource exploitation and ecological sustainability. Taking Jungar Banner as a case study, this study uses remote sensing imagery and auxiliary data (2010–2025) to examine spatiotemporal land-use changes, applies the OPGD model to detect driving factors, and integrates a Markov chain with an optimized NEGM-MOP-PLUS model to project 2030 land-use patterns under multiple scenarios. Results show that grassland shrank markedly, while cropland and built-up land expanded—the latter reaching 395.75 km2 by 2025. After 2020, core mining areas became more contiguous, while peripheral zones showed increased fragmentation, with built-up land expansion becoming the dominant trend. Driving forces shifted from natural constraints to anthropogenic dominance: natural factors prevailed in 2010, mining impacts took the lead by 2015, and a mining–precipitation dual-core structure emerged by 2020. Future projections indicate continued grassland and bare land reduction, alongside water and built-up land expansion across all scenarios. Among them, the CDS, which balances economic and ecological objectives, is identified as the optimal spatial planning direction based on ecosystem service value (ESV) assessment. These findings offer practical guidance for managing land-use transitions in arid and semi-arid resource-based mining regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091562

Authors: Liang Xiao Jiaqing Ma Xinman Li Siyu Chen Bo Zhou

The integrated development of urban agglomerations strengthens regional connectivity and supports balanced regional development. However, population shrinkage persists in some counties of the Chengdu–Chongqing Economic Circle despite increasingly close regional linkages. From the perspective of regional network embeddedness, this study examines the relationship between different types of regional linkages and the heterogeneous patterns of county-level population shrinkage. Taking 142 counties and districts in the CCEC as the research units, and drawing on multi-source panel data from 2002 to 2022, this study constructs four types of regional linkages: transportation linkages, corporate organizational linkages, executive interlock linkages, and ownership-based corporate investment linkages. Fixed-effects panel models and ordered logistic regression models are then employed to examine the associations of different network linkages with county-level population change and the degree of population shrinkage. By comparing these four network layers within the same county-level framework, the study distinguishes the roles of accessibility, corporate organization, executive relations, and ownership ties. Network evolution was uneven. The dual-core pattern weakened in the transportation and executive interlock networks, while corporate investment became more centralized. These changes describe network topology, whereas population growth remained concentrated in Chengdu, Chongqing, and adjoining districts. Between 2002 and 2022, 89 of the 142 counties in the CCEC experienced population shrinkage, accounting for 62.7% of the sample. These shrinking counties gradually clustered in peripheral areas, including northeastern Sichuan, southern Sichuan, and northeastern Chongqing, resulting in the coexistence of core growth and peripheral shrinkage. Moran’s I increased from 0.0015 in 2002–2007 to 0.1659 in 2017–2022, indicating increasing spatial clustering. The full-sample panel analysis indicates that higher centrality in the transportation, corporate organizational, and corporate investment networks is significantly associated with higher county-level population change rates, indicating either stronger growth or a smaller decline, whereas executive interlock linkages are negatively associated with population change. Further analysis of shrinking counties shows that higher corporate organizational and corporate investment centrality is significantly associated with lower shrinkage severity. By contrast, transportation and executive interlock centrality are not significantly associated with shrinkage severity. Therefore, the positive full-sample association for transportation centrality should not be interpreted as evidence that transportation network expansion generally compensates for metropolitan concentration. These findings suggest that county-level population shrinkage does not simply result from a lack of regional connections, but is closely related to the specific types of networks in which counties are embedded. Corporate organizational and corporate investment networks exhibit more stable statistical associations across both model settings, indicating that increased regional connectivity does not necessarily lead to balanced county-level development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091561

Authors: Long Jia Wenjin Wu Xinwu Li Yuhan Xie Guillermo Jose Martínez Pastur

Arid mountain–oasis–desert regions exhibit strong terrain and surface-cover heterogeneity that is difficult to represent using conventional land-cover classification schemes. This study developed an ecosystem-oriented hierarchical framework for the Kashi region by combining a terrain-constrained Mountain extraction method with Automatic Deep Forest Shrinkage model (ADeFS). Nine ecosystem elements were defined: Mountain, Water, Forest, Cropland, Lake, Grassland, Desert, Ice, and Human. Mountain was first delineated as an independent physiographic element using a locally derived baseline surface, relative relief, slope, and topographic position, thereby reducing semantic overlap between terrain units and spectrally similar surface-cover classes. ADeFS was then adapted to classify the seven non-mountain classes, and Lake was subsequently separated from the unified Water class through visual interpretation. The results show that ADeFS achieved the highest accuracy, with an overall accuracy of 88.7% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.868. Independent field validation of the 2026 map yielded an overall accuracy of 86.2% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.825. From 2015 to 2026, the mountain-oasis-desert structure remained broadly stable, while Desert and Ice decreased and Forest, Grassland, and Cropland expanded. Ecosystem-element transitions were concentrated before 2021 and weakened thereafter. Landscape metrics showed that Desert remained the dominant matrix, Grassland had the highest patch density and edge density, and Cropland became increasingly aggregated within oasis agricultural areas. The framework provides an ecologically interpretable approach for ecosystem-element mapping and long-term monitoring in arid heterogeneous regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091560

Authors: Misharch Kwadwo Osei Jewel Andoh

The international policy framework for “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, plus the conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks” (REDD+) is a vital United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) mechanism designed to assist Global South nations in reaching their climate goals under the Paris Agreement. Implementable at the project, subnational, and national levels, REDD+ has placed an increasing emphasis on subnational program implementation in recent years, exemplified by a growing focus on jurisdictional and integrated landscape strategies. These comprehensive approaches balance diverse land uses and address the complex causes of deforestation through economic incentives and multi-level, cross-sector planning at the state, provincial, or district levels. Ultimately, successful implementation depends on collaboration, active stakeholder engagement, resources, mutual trust, and adequate institutional capacity to manage conflicting local interests. However, weak forestland-use governance in many countries of the Global South often results in inefficient collaborative dynamics that hinder stakeholder cooperation. Despite this, the specific collaborative challenges hindering stakeholder collaboration in subnational REDD+ implementation remain insufficiently understood. To address this gap, this study conducts a literature review to systematically synthesize evidence on subnational REDD+ implementation, using the Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance (IFCG) to identify key knowledge gaps and challenges. Following established methodological guidance, six databases were searched, Scopus (824), Web of Science (1347), PubMed (84), ResearchGate (557), Google Scholar (571), and Research Rabbit (191), yielding 43 articles on subnational REDD+ implementation for inclusion in the synthesis. The findings identify four main challenges: (i) system context-related challenges, (ii) burdensome global requirements, (iii) resource constraints, and (iv) challenges inherent in the institutional design of collaborative arrangements. While the IFCG proves analytically useful, the complexity and evolving nature of subnational REDD+ programs complicate its application, revealing areas for theoretical refinement. By critically examining the IFCG’s utility, this study advances collaborative governance theory and offers empirical insights into the conditions necessary for effective stakeholder collaboration in subnational REDD+ implementation across the Global South.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091559

Authors: Amare Tefera Jack Koci Ben Jarihani Paul N. Nelson David Phelps Trevor J. Hall Jenny Milson

Major floods following prolonged drought can substantially alter ground cover, soil stability and pasture condition, yet longer-term trajectories of rangeland recovery remain poorly understood. This study assessed land condition at 62 monitoring sites in the Flinders River catchment, north-west Queensland, following the 2019 flood, with re-assessment in 2024. Land condition was evaluated using the A–B–C–D framework alongside rainfall, satellite-derived bare ground, land type, distance to drainage and flood-extent data. In March 2019, 79% of sites were classified as C or D, reflecting the combined influence of prolonged drought and flood disturbance. By 2024, 30 of 62 sites (48%) had improved by at least one class, and median condition shifted from class C to B, though change was spatially variable. Initial land condition was negatively correlated with net change (ρ = −0.47, p < 0.001, n = 62). Rainfall showed no significant association with land condition or net change among sites, whereas dry-season bare ground was significantly associated across multiple temporal windows. These findings indicate that land condition change following drought–flood disturbance is likely associated with site-level factors, particularly residual pasture structure and soil surface condition, and highlight the value of combining field and satellite data for rangeland monitoring following extreme climate events.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091558

Authors: Simona Azzali Nadra Bibi

Hybrid indoor–outdoor spaces, including arcades, breezeways, semi-covered walkways, terraces, and courtyard-like pockets, can support mobility, perceived comfort, and social life in hot-arid cities. Yet their design is often guided by precedent rather than user evidence. This paper presents a pilot mixed-method study of City Walk, Dubai, examining how users perceive and occupy shaded versus exposed, edge versus center, and quieter versus more active micro-zones within hybrid indoor–outdoor spaces. The study combines structured non-intrusive behavioral observation, fieldnotes, and an intercept survey. It is perception-led and observation-supported, focusing on public-life patterns, perceived comfort, and micro-spatial use rather than measured microclimatic performance. Findings indicate that respondents associated shade continuity, perceived airflow, edge-oriented pause opportunities, glare reduction, and quieter micro-pockets with more usable and comfortable conditions. The contribution lies not in establishing new thermal thresholds but in testing a replicable workflow linking public-life observation, perception data, and spatial exposure mapping at the micro-zone scale. The resulting propositions are presented as case-derived hypotheses for future instrumented, seasonal, and comparative research rather than as design standards for Gulf Cooperation Council cities.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091557

Authors: Grethell Castillo Reyes Floris Abrams Gerd Dercon Yuichi Onda Gerdys Jiménez Moya Dirk Roose Jos Van Orshoven

Afforestation can mitigate the export of water, sediment, and dissolved or adsorbed contaminants to river systems, but identifying effective intervention sites requires accounting for multiple flow-related criteria and their spatial interactions. This paper presents a multi-criteria heuristic approach that extends CAMF (Cellular Automata-based Heuristic for Minimizing Flow), originally designed to select cells from a rasterized landscape for interventions that minimize sediment yield at target sites. We integrated the Distance-to-Ideal-Point (DIST2IP) algorithm in CAMF, enabling the selection of cells where intervention can minimize two or more flows simultaneously. The multi-criteria CAMF was applied ex post to the radioactively contaminated Niida river catchment, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, to identify 1000 cells within decontaminated zones where the then immediate afforestation would have maximally reduced both sediment and residual 137Cs export. The 1000 best cells selected by DIST2IP, representing 4% of the decontaminated cells, would have reduced sediment export by 22% and 137Cs export by 6%. Selected cells are within the union of cells identified by the two single-criteria optimizations and are predominantly close to water bodies, confirming that blocking flow paths before they connect to the river system is most effective.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091556

Authors: Yuan Yuan Zhangying Wu Jiale Sun Danyang Wang Qi Fu

This study examines urban green infrastructure (UGI) branding as a governance practice shaped by institutional homogenization and strategic responses within China’s multi-level policy framework. Against the backdrop of global sustainability agendas, UGI branding is conceptualized as a policy-oriented, symbolically embedded instrument for communicating cities’ commitments to green development and climate resilience. Using an institutional “identity–label–image” framework, integrated with policy diffusion theory and multi-center regional development models, we systematically analyze historical brand-label data from 27 core cities in the Yangtze River Delta. Our findings reveal three key patterns: (1) brand diffusion follows dual pathways of mandatory and imitative homogenization, with evolutionary rhythms tied to five-year planning cycles, generating discernible “policy waves”; (2) within polycentric regional structures, core cities act as institutional “interpreters” and benchmarks, while peripheral cities pursue imitation-driven differentiation, reflecting complex dynamics of collaboration and competition; and (3) urban identities expressed through brand labels progressively align with substantive sustainability transitions, aiming to enhance regional competitiveness and upward recognition. We conclude that UGI branding constitutes a deep-seated mechanism of sustainable urban governance, offering a novel theoretical lens on China’s institutional logic of city branding and providing actionable insights for optimizing collaborative brand governance and integrated green infrastructure planning in urban agglomerations.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091555

Authors: Anica Teofilović Boris Radić Suzana Gavrilović

Contemporary urban development imposes an increasingly pronounced need for aligned spatial transformations with the preservation of natural resources, adaptation to climate change, and the improvement of quality of life. In this context, the concept of green infrastructure has been recognized as an integrative framework that connects ecological processes with spatial and urban planning. However, the ways in which green infrastructure is strategically articulated and operationalized through planning processes vary depending on the institutional and spatial context. The aim of this paper is to identify the dominant strategic approaches to green infrastructure planning and to examine their implications for spatial and urban planning. The research is based on a qualitative comparative analysis of selected European green infrastructure strategies, while the Green Infrastructure Strategy of the City of Belgrade is considered as an analytical case study within the specific institutional and planning context of Serbia. The analysis focuses on three key components of strategic articulation—visions, objectives, and measures—in order to identify recurring patterns that shape the integration of green infrastructure into planning practice. The results indicate a high degree of convergence among strategic approaches, particularly regarding the emphasis on quality of life, ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, and the strengthening of climate resilience. The identified patterns indicate the need for transformation of regulatory frameworks, the improvement of planning procedures and instruments, and the adoption of a spatial logic based on connectivity and multifunctionality. The analytical examination of the Belgrade Strategy shows that its structure of visions, objectives, and measures encompasses the key regulatory, procedural, and spatial prerequisites for incorporating green infrastructure into planning practice, and at the same time, its operationalization depends on institutional capacities, information systems, financial instruments, and mechanisms of intersectoral coordination. The paper concludes that green infrastructure strategies play an important role in mediating between public policies and spatial planning solutions, while their effectiveness depends on the alignment of regulatory, procedural, and spatial instruments.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091554

Authors: Jesús Hernández Alzás José Manuel Naranjo Gómez José Cabezas Fernández

This study evaluates the structural dynamics of the landscape within the Sierra de San Pedro and Embalse de Cornalvo Special Areas of Conservation between 2006 and 2018 to determine the effect of land-use spatial configuration on ecosystem stability. Methodologically, Corine Land Cover cartography was geoprocessed in QuantumGIS utilising the LecoS plugin to calculate five landscape metrics. The results reveal marked stability within the agroforestry matrix of both protected areas, demonstrating the effectiveness of their conservation status against drastic land-use changes. Nonetheless, contrasting internal trajectories were identified: the Sierra de San Pedro experienced a process of silent reforestation and the unification of natural habitats (characterised by a reduction in patch numbers and an increase in mean patch size), whereas the Cornalvo landscape exhibited strong structural homogeneity dominated by human activity. It is concluded that while the Sierra de San Pedro is evolving towards forest maturation and robust internal connectivity, Cornalvo maintains a structural inertia of absolute stability. These findings demonstrate the importance of incorporating spatial metrics into environmental management to strengthen ecosystem resilience to change.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091553

Authors: Çağdan Uyar

Evidence linking annual wildfire burden to administrative wildlife monitoring counts remains limited, particularly in fire-prone Mediterranean settings. This study examined whether wildfire activity was associated with province-level administrative target-species monitoring counts in Türkiye, focusing on delayed rather than contemporaneous relationships. A retrospective ecological panel design (2005–2024) harmonized official wildfire and wildlife inventory data across 22 Turkish provinces (440 observations). Two-way fixed effects panel models estimated same-year, lagged, and supplementary robustness associations between wildfire exposure (fire count, burned area, and damage per fire) and administrative target-species counts. Same-year models showed no clear associations. Burned area showed its clearest negative association at a two-year lag, while paired models indicated negative one- and two-year associations for burned area and damage per fire. Province-specific trend models preserved the main negative directions, and false-discovery-rate adjustment retained the lag-1 burned-area and damage-per-fire terms in the paired model families. The lag-2 burned-area association remained visible after excluding 2021 and after winsorizing extreme burned-area values. Restricted target-frame sensitivity analyses supported a narrower interpretation of the administrative outcome; deer/roe-deer frames showed negative cumulative burned-area associations, whereas wild-goat frames yielded less precise estimates. Burned area and damage per fire were interpreted as spatial fire-footprint indicators rather than direct burn-severity measures. The highest composite risk scores were observed in Antalya, Muğla, and İzmir. Distinguishing wildfire frequency from areal fire burden remains central for interpreting delayed administrative monitoring patterns.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091552

Authors: Armonía Borrego Gabriela Cuevas García Teodoro Carlón-Allende Lucía Morales-Barquero

Global commodity chains reshape rural territories through interconnected environmental and socioeconomic processes; these dynamics are often examined through the lens of land-use change. Export-oriented agricultural frontiers illustrate how global market integration can generate landscape and societal transformations. In western Mexico, the expansion of the avocado industry exemplifies commodity-driven territorial change, linking land-use dynamics with transformations in rural economies and livelihoods. This study analyzes how export integration into the international avocado commodity chain was associated with transformations in land systems and socioeconomic dynamics across four municipalities in Michoacán, Mexico, between 2003 and 2023. Using high-resolution land-use maps alongside demographic and socioeconomic indicators, we apply a qualitative, comparative and inductive synthesis of spatial and census data to examine how commodity integration interacted with local conditions to shape landscape and territorial organization. Avocado expansion coincided with territorial transformation, including the conversion of pine-oak forest and traditional agricultural lands, as well as changes in labor arrangements, demographic dynamics, and rural livelihood systems. Land-use analysis shows continued orchard expansion and accelerated land conversion after 2015. Socioeconomic indicators reveal population growth, increased female employment, and persistent income inequality, highlighting the uneven incorporation of rural territories into global commodity chains. We identified four territorial pathways: agricultural specialization, agro-industrial urbanization, transitional diversification, and rural commodity integration. These findings contribute to debates on uneven geographical development and commodity frontier expansion by showing how global commodity integration intersects with ecological, economic, and social processes to generate distinct pathways.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091551

Authors: Yonggang Wang Daohong Gong Fu Zou Mingjun Ding Wentao Zhong

Nature reserves (NRs) sustain biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services (ESs), yet assessments commonly stop at administrative boundaries and seldom examine how service relationships and associated factors vary across surrounding landscape gradients. We assessed carbon storage (CS), habitat quality (HQ), soil retention (SR), and water yield (WY) in 54 NRs in Jiangxi Province, China, and nested 5 and 10 km surrounding zones for 2000, 2010, and 2020. The InVEST model, a comprehensive ecosystem service index (CESI), correlation analysis, RMSE, and GeoDetector were used to characterize service dynamics, trade-offs/synergies, and spatial associations. CS and HQ increased slightly, whereas SR and WY rose until 2010 and subsequently declined. Mean CESI decreased outward from NR interiors (0.53) to the 5 km (0.50) and 10 km zones (0.49), although WY was higher outside NRs in 2020. CS–HQ and SR–WY were predominantly synergistic, while HQ–SR showed the strongest trade-off. Dominant associated factors and their interactions varied among services and spatial zones. These findings reveal context-dependent cross-boundary differentiation in ecosystem-service patterns, supporting coordinated management of NRs and their surrounding landscapes and service-specific conservation priorities.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091550

Authors: Ling Chen Liguo Zhang Luguang Jiang Ting Ma Rucheng Lu

From the perspective of coordinating development and security for high-quality development in border regions, this paper focuses on the adaptation relationship between development and security functions in the Yunnan–Guangxi border region. The study aims to characterize the spatiotemporal evolution and spatial differentiation of these two functions and identify distinct types of functional adaptation and their spatial characteristics. Based on the development–security linkage perspective, a regional functional evaluation system incorporating specialized indicators, such as border trade development and national territorial security, is constructed. The CRITIC method, a functional adaptation model, and spatial statistical methods are then employed to examine the spatiotemporal evolution of the development and security functions and their adaptation in the Yunnan–Guangxi border region from 2002 to 2022, followed by a classification of regional functional adaptation types. By integrating development and security functions into a unified analytical framework, this study extends the research perspective on regional functions and the development–security relationship in border areas and provides a reference for coordinating development and security and implementing differentiated spatial governance. The results indicate the following: ① The overall regional functional level of the Yunnan–Guangxi border region increased steadily, although the growth was characterized by distinct stages, with rapid growth in the early period followed by stabilization in the later period. Regional disparities first narrowed and then widened. Both the development and security functions increased from low to medium or high levels. Specifically, high-value areas of the development function were concentrated in inland hub cities, whereas those of the security function were distributed along the border. ② The overall adaptation between the development and security functions was favorable, with the adaptation index increasing slightly. The adaptation level in the Guangxi border region was higher than that in Yunnan, while the spatial distribution of adaptation types shifted from relative clustering to dispersion. ③ The county-level administrative units in the Yunnan–Guangxi border region were classified into five functional adaptation types. During the study period, the transitional upgrading type accounted for the largest proportion, and the overall spatial pattern was characterized by “advancement along the border while maintaining stability in the hinterland.” Therefore, differentiated guidance and governance strategies should be implemented according to the characteristics of each functional adaptation type to promote the dynamic coordination between development and security functions, thereby supporting spatial governance and functional improvement in border regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091548

Authors: Lucas Castañeda Agustin Cavallaro Carlos G. Buduba Walter Opazo Juan Cruz Colazo Ana Navas Ludmila La Manna

Wind erosion is a major driver of land degradation in drylands worldwide, yet the relative importance of climatic forcing and local surface conditions remains poorly understood. We quantified horizontal mass transport (HMT), characterized the particle-size distribution and organic matter of transported sediments, and identified the main environmental controls on wind erosion across three rangeland sites in the Patagonian steppe of southern Argentina. HMT was monitored over one year using passive sediment collectors (Mendeźs trap), while climatic erosivity, vegetation cover, and topsoil properties were concurrently assessed. Wind erosion exhibited substantial spatial variability, with annual HMT ranging from 0.22 to 2.35 kg m−1 yr−1 among sites. Transported sediments were enriched in both silt and organic matter relative to source soils, indicating the preferential export of fine, carbon-rich fractions during aeolian transport. Multivariate analyses revealed that wind erosion was more strongly associated with local vegetation cover and soil erodibility than with climatic erosivity. These findings suggest that surface conditions can override regional climatic controls on sediment transport in arid rangelands. Our results highlight the critical role of maintaining vegetation cover and soil surface stability to mitigate desertification processes and provide empirical evidence to improve wind erosion assessment and land management strategies in drylands.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091549

Authors: Mustafa İlker Sürer Ahmet Tolunay Turkay Turkoglu Çağdan Uyar Dalia Perkumienė Marius Aleinikovas Mindaugas Škėma

This study aims to investigate the perspectives of aquaculture producers in the Western Mediterranean Region (operating in Antalya, Burdur, and Isparta provinces) on climate change, examine the impacts of climate change on regional aquaculture, and develop solution proposals. Within the scope of this objective, the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of the aquaculture producers in the Western Mediterranean Region, along with their knowledge levels regarding climate change, were obtained through a questionnaire technique. The results indicate that producers, who are predominantly engaged in rainbow trout aquaculture, are under severe economic pressure due to high-exchange-rate-driven input costs and the abolition of government subsidies. While all participants (100%) perceived that climate change has decreased production tonnage, the most prominent impact of the climate crisis is perceived as drought and the decline of water resources, with a response rate of 37.2%. Multivariable analysis further showed that aquaculture experience and satisfaction with aquaculture income were significantly associated with producers’ future outlook, highlighting the importance of socioeconomic factors in shaping perceived sectoral vulnerability. Due to both rising costs and environmental risks, 50% of the producers view the future of the sector pessimistically and do not recommend this profession to future generations. Consequently, these results emphasize the critical need for integrated land and water resource management policies, alongside targeted climate adaptation strategies, to ensure the long-term socio-ecological sustainability of forest inland aquaculture in the region.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15091547

Authors: Han Xu Rui Chen Xuewei Dang

Urban regeneration is an important policy tool for restructuring urban space, but its implications for operational transport-related carbon emissions remain unclear. Using the City Smart Planning System (CitySPS), this study simulates emissions in Shenzhen from 2020 to 2035 under a baseline and five policy scenarios representing temporal modification, land-use type modification and spatial replacement. The analysis uses legally designated regeneration parcels and multi-source spatial data. The accounting boundary covers CitySPS-represented operational transport-related carbon emissions from urban travel and excludes demolition, construction, building operation, embodied emissions, and other life-cycle sources. The baseline emissions rose from 1.840 × 107 t CO2 in 2020 to 2.269 × 107 t CO2 in 2035 (approximately 23%). Relative to the same-year baseline, all the policy scenarios produce higher simulated emissions in 2030 (+0.11% to +1.26%) but lower simulated emissions in 2035 (−0.34% to −1.97%). Under the evaluated configurations and the shared CitySPS assumptions, spatial replacement produces the largest simulated reduction in 2035 (−1.97%) despite an increase in 2030 (+0.41%). The results indicate time-dependent and heterogeneous outcomes across the scenario configurations.