Challenges in Land Use and Land Cover Changes: Monitoring, Diversity and Variability, Sustainability
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainability in Geographic Science".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2023) | Viewed by 12195
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Land use and land cover changes play a crucial role in a wide range of environmental issues, such as geoecosystem functioning, lithosphere–morphosphere–pedosphere–hydrosphere–atmosphere–biosphere interactions, matter and energy balances, biogeochemical cycles, and last but not least, sustainable development and spatial planning and preservation of geodiversity and biodiversity. LULC changes, through natural and human impact (forces), have re-shaped the Earth surface. These changes can occur and be observed at local, regional, and global scales. Monitoring LULC changes allows us to detect drivers and trends in contemporary transformations of natural and human environments. Quantitative assessment of monitored LULC changes provides an early warning of adverse human activities in the environment. Therefore, science is challenged to develop modern methods and interpretations for present-day monitoring of land use and land cover changes for sustainable development of sites, regions, and countries. The increasing prevalence of digital remote sources and geodata is making rapid progress in analyzing, interpreting, and predicting these changes. The extensive catalogue of high-resolution and open data provides a basis for realistic spatiotemporal assessments of the near future. Such monitoring of LULC, its spatial diversity, and temporal variability should provide a better management of present natural resources, sustainable development of villages, towns, and regions, as well as protection of the environment for future generations.
Articles may cover but are not limited to:
- Monitoring and mapping of historical and contemporary LULC changes using present-day geoinformation technology;
- Identification of drivers for LULC changes;
- Analysis of LULC changes for different natural landscapes, urbanized, agricultural, forested, and protected areas;
- Methods for classification and interpretation of LULC changes;
- Spatial diversity and temporal variability of LULC changes;
- Directions and trends of LULC changes;
- LULC change modeling and forecasting;
- Ways of protecting the environment against adverse LULC changes.
Prof. Dr. Zbigniew Zwolinski
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- land use
- land cover
- geoinformation
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