Spatial Planning and Land-Use Management: 2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

Socioeconomic, demographic, environmental, cultural and political drivers have been recognized as major forces shaping the landscape around the world, affecting both the natural and physical structure of the landscape. The competition for land use has led to a continuous loss of natural and semi-natural land to impervious surfaces, contributing to the increase in land fragmentation and degradation of biodiversity and wildlife habitats.

Spatial planning and land-use management (SPLUM) instruments play an important role in managing the trade-offs between improving the quality of life of populations and addressing the protection of the environment and natural resource management. Furthermore, they contribute to recognizing alternatives for land use to meet socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental demands and ensure the protection of populations, addressing the principles of efficiency, equity, and sustainability. However, SPLUM is in an “unstable equilibrium” driven by the physical structures of places and how they interact, by the articulation between different policies, and by the interests of different stakeholders. As spatial planning and land-use management instruments have long-term impacts that will affect the future development of societies, it is critical to develop optimal spatial planning systems and instruments today. This is even more critical in regions where the demand for housing, infrastructure, and services is expected to grow fast. Some of the measures that could be implemented could be redirected to more inclusive and system-oriented territorial development (e.g., by adapting the instruments to the different interests of socioeconomic actors while establishing good resource management and a low-carbon future).

Therefore, an improvement in SPLUM (by reversing or anticipating potential negative impacts on land-use changes) is critical and can contribute to supporting policymakers in a better decision-making process. In this Special Issue, we would like to invite you to submit regular research articles and review articles on one or more of the following topics of interest (but you are not limited to these):

• Spatial planning, land-use management, and decision-making contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals 2030, The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), the European Green Deal, and related documents such as the Fit for 55 package, Zero Pollution Action for 2050, Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, European Forest Conservation Strategy, or From Farm to Fork strategy;
• The role of green infrastructure and natural-based solutions, including food systems for sustainable regional and local spatial planning;
• Spatial planning and energy transition, including emerging conflicts and new territorial opportunities;
• Land-use conflicts in future scenarios (e.g., new roles for periurban and rurban territories; increasing water consumption in a context of local agricultural systems; urban land use conflicts and energy transition);
• Land-use and circular-economy planning options;
• Land-use changes, mobility, and accessibility patterns;
• Participatory land-use planning (using methods and tools to support multi-stakeholder planning approaches) and systemic thinking;
• Past and/or future land-use/land-cover change analysis and modelling (using, for example, geocomputation methods), future scenario building, policy monitoring indicators, and assessment analysis.

Dr. Eduardo Gomes
Dr. Eduarda Marques Da Costa
Dr. Patrícia Abrantes
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• spatial planning
• land-use management
• land use/land cover
• participatory planning
• system thinking planning
• future scenarios
• land-use conflicts
• accessibility
• periurban and rurban territories
• geospatial modelling
• remote sensing

• Spatial Planning and Land-Use Management in Land (12 articles)