Land Evaluation: Economic and Physical Assessments towards Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Land dedicates this Special Issue to Land Evaluation: Economic and Physical Assessments towards Sustainability. The overall environment is constantly changing as a result of the interaction between natural and anthropogenic threats. Terrestrial land and its interface with seas and oceans in coastal areas and wetlands is subjected to the increased impacts of climate change (global warming, desertification, ocean acidification, storms, sea level rise, etc.) and human threat intensification (urbanization, use of resources, deforestation, etc.). The real management of these environments requires the combination of management processes such as monitoring, simple intervention, recycling, recharge, construction, and maintenance, in a way that reflects an acceptable compromise in light of available finance between environmental defense, nature conservation, public amenity, and industrial objectives (Micallef and Williams, 2002; Simm et al., 1996). Therefore, we should consider the entire spectrum of conflicts in that it addresses—social, economic, and ecological aspects of environments—as socio-ecological systems (SESs; Defeo and McLachlan, 2005; Botero and Hurtado, 2009). This approach considers an environment as comprised of multidimensional systems linked with and affected by one or more social systems where natural, socio-economic, and administrative components interact (Micallef, 1996; Micallef and Williams, 2002; Williams and Davies, 1999). Quantifying and valuing environmental goods and ecosystem services from an economic perspective is often problematic, and requires an interdisciplinary perspective from economics to other complementary disciplines (Pearce et al., 2006; Hanley and Spash, 1994). Economic valuation techniques can be applied to estimate the value of a specific environment using models that assume equilibrium market conditions. However, in order to capture the complexity and dynamic interlinkages between the economic and environmental systems, we need an integrated model that answers to some research questions: What is the economic value of increasing environmental protection in a community? Do revenues justify the costs of threat control? Under what conditions can policy interventions to stabilize environments be sustained in the long run, especially in the face of climate change?

In light of the above, we invite you to contribute articles to this Special Issue by reporting developed studies and new data about environment assessment using multi-disciplinary approaches. This Special Issue will assemble research that presents innovative methods, novel data analysis, application case studies, and insights that can improve our understanding of land-environment assessment using physical, geological, engineering, ecological, as well as economic evaluation for sustainable land use.

We welcome both original research and review papers focusing on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• The protection, management, and conservation of natural areas;
• Climate change impacts assessment;
• Relative sea level rise and economical sustainability of coastal areas;
• Geographic Information Systems (GISs);
• Integrated approaches to ecosystem valuation;
• Ecosystem services evaluation;
• Integrated tools for land management;
• Revealed and stated preference techniques.

Dr. Ilaria Rodella
Prof. Dr. Massimiliano Mazzanti
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 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.