Energy-Water-Land Nexus Under Low-Carbon Globalization
A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Water, Energy, Land and Food (WELF) Nexus".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 3296
Special Issue Editor
Interests: economic geography; environmental economics; sustainable development; political ecology; global supply chain; food security
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Renewable energy capacities such as wind and solar power have grown rapidly over the past decade, with deployments in almost every country and region of the world. Large-scale renewable energy projects play a pivotal role in decarbonizing the grid to produce an economy with net-zero emissions and mitigate global climate change.
However, increasing environmental, social, and ecological pressures arising from the continued growth of renewable installed capacities have demonstrated that much of this technically feasible land is unlikely to be available for deployment. The transition to renewable energy thus needs to take land use security into consideration, especially focusing on the competition of energy-related land use occupation, the optimal siting of renewable energy facilities, and the potential impacts driven by large-scale renewable energy siting.
The transition to renewable energy will require the use of large swathes of land for utility-scale renewable energy project sites. The impacts of this large-scale facility deployment on local communities raise questions about issues that remain to be explored, including, but not limited to, social awareness, energy justice, the optimal land for use, and ecological impacts.
This Special Issue covers, but is not limited to, the following topics:
- Techno-economic and demographic factors that influence renewable energy siting
- Planning, siting, and permitting processes for large-scale renewable energy facilities.
- Modelling and mapping potential land suitability for large-scale renewable energy
- Land use implications of renewable energy transition pathways towards carbon neutrality.
- Land footprint and land use changes due to renewable energy expansion.
- Energy infrastructure siting and the related economic, social, and ecological impacts.
Dr. Mengyao Han
Guest Editor
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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.
Keywords
- renewable energy siting
- social–ecological impacts
- photovoltaic panels
- land occupation
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