Land doi: 10.3390/land15060941

Authors: Naomi di Santo Luis A. Fernández-Portillo María José Vázquez-De Francisco Lorenzo Estepa-Mohedano Roberta Sisto

This study investigates the determinants of farmers’ intention to convert to organic farming, focusing on the role of perceived territorial capital in rural Paraguay. Despite increasing demand for sustainable agricultural systems, the adoption of organic farming remains uneven, particularly in developing countries. Existing literature has mainly examined economic, socio-demographic, and psychological factors, while the role of territorial context has received less attention. The analysis relies on primary data collected through a structured survey of 167 conventional farmers across four Paraguayan departments. A logistic regression model is used to evaluate the effect of different dimensions of territorial capital—environmental, institutional, economic, and infrastructural—together with socio-economic and organisational characteristics, on farmers’ intention to convert within the next five years. The results indicate that perceived environmental capital significantly increases the probability of conversion intention (AME = 0.097, p < 0.05), while social capital, proxied by cooperative membership, raises it by 17.5 percentage points (p < 0.05). In contrast, perceived institutional capital shows a negative association (AME = −0.059, p < 0.10), and market orientation toward local markets reduces the probability of conversion (AME = −0.314, p < 0.05). Economic and infrastructural factors are not statistically significant. Overall, the study contributes by incorporating a territorial perspective into the analysis of adoption intentions and underlines the importance of strengthening environmental resources and social networks to support agro-ecological transitions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060940

Authors: Haojie Su Siqin Bao Jiahua Zhang Luomeng Chao Risheng Cheng

This study assessed the spatiotemporal dynamics of eco-environmental quality (EEQ) in Sonid Left Banner from 2000 to 2025, using Landsat imagery and the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) via Google Earth Engine. Theil–Sen slope, Mann–Kendall test, Hurst exponent, and Pearson correlation analysis were used to analyze trends and their associations with climatic and anthropogenic factors. Results showed that EEQ exhibited an overall improving trend, with a mean RSEI of 0.270 and an annual increase of 0.0022 a−1, though it remained at a fair grade with a spatial pattern of “regionally poor but locally improved.” Hurst exponent analysis has indicated that 75.35% of the study area will sustain improvement, while 17.03% faces continuous degradation risk. Climatic factors showed the strongest associations with RSEI: precipitation (r = 0.329) and humidity (r = 0.313) showed the strongest positive correlations, with a distinct north–south spatial gradient in their association patterns; temperature (r = 0.272) showed bidirectional correlation patterns; and wind speed (r = −0.197) was the primary negative correlated factor. Human activity intensity (HAI) was negatively correlated with RSEI (r = −0.128), with 7.8% of high-intensity development areas showing significant degradation. These findings reveal that moisture availability establishes the ecological baseline in semi-arid grasslands, while human activities modulate ecosystem change, informing targeted ecological restoration.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060939

Authors: Gulinaer Yusufu Zhi Lu

Public data is a foundational resource and new production factor in the digital economy era. Scientific assessment of its economic effects on urban–rural integration is of great significance for promoting the revitalization of rural areas and achieving common prosperity. This study employs a double machine learning (DML) model for causal inference, using the establishment of “data trading platforms” as an exogenous policy shock to measure public data openness (Opendata). The level of urban–rural integration (Uri) is assessed through a comprehensive index system encompassing economic, population, social, spatial, and ecological dimensions, with weights assigned using the CRITIC method. Based on panel data from 259 prefecture-level cities in China (2012–2024), the analysis is conducted using machine learning algorithms such as Lasso regression, supplemented by a series of robustness and endogeneity tests. Research has found that public data openness can significantly promote urban–rural integration, and this conclusion still holds true after a series of robustness tests. Mechanism analysis indicates that public data openness promotes urban–rural integration by facilitating the flow of factors between urban and rural areas and enhancing technological innovation. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the enhancing effect of public data openness on urban–rural integration is more significant in eastern cities and non-resource-based cities. Based on these conclusions, it is recommended to further accelerate the cultivation of a standardized and unified data element market and enrich the “digital soil”, solve the problems of unsmooth flows of factors and resource constraints, strengthen data empowerment in urban–rural information sharing, and promote common prosperity in urban and rural areas.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060938

Authors: Yingzhuo Zhang Yan Zhang Jing Chen Changhong Miao

Evaluating and identifying paths for cultural tourism development (CTD) in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) is crucial for establishing the Yellow River Cultural Tourism Belt in China. This study utilised Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to address the complex factors affecting CTD, unlike econometric approaches. An evaluation framework based on sustainable development and inclusive growth, consisting of 24 factors across three rule layers, was created to assess 78 cities in the YRB, China, using the entropy weight–TOPSIS method. Analysis with ArcGIS 10.5 revealed that from 2004 to 2019, CTD increased overall, with notable regional disparities: downstream and central regions thrived, while northern and southern regions lagged. High development followed three paths: policy-assisted consumer market-driven, economic investment-driven, and government-guided economic investment and innovation-driven development. Conversely, low development followed three paths: insufficient economic policies and innovation, deficient economy and consumer market, and insufficient economic and social investment. These findings could help develop sustainable cultural tourism in the birthplaces of global civilisations, specifically within the Chinese context.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060937

Authors: Jiao Long Mingyong Hong

Formally stipulating rental terms in farmland transfer contracts is essential to safeguarding transacting parties’ rights, anchoring market price signals, and underpinning the rule-based governance of rural land markets. Drawing on survey data from 1496 rural households across three Chinese provinces, this study empirically examines how connection strength between transacting parties shapes the decision to formally stipulate rental terms in farmland transfer contracts. Baseline estimates show that greater connection strength is significantly and negatively associated with the probability of formal rental term stipulation, a pattern robust to alternative model specifications and variable operationalizations. Mechanism analysis reveals that stronger connections inhibit formal stipulation by concurrently heightening reputational constraints among parties suppressing demand for formal enforcement mechanisms and attenuating perceived transactional risk, which erodes the perceived value of the risk-bounding function that written clauses provide. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that this inhibitory effect is concentrated among ordinary farm household transfers and disappears among new-type agricultural business entities, where institutional rationality crowds out connection-based governance logic. Beyond its direct effect on contract formalization, greater connection strength indirectly undermines the price-anchoring function of written agreements, exposing realized rents to systematic connection-based discounting. These findings carry direct implications for the demand-side redesign of contract formalization policy and the development of county-level rental price guidance systems in rural China.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060936

Authors: Yajie Yang Qiwei Ma

As global climate change intensifies and urbanization accelerates, ecosystems face increasing pressure on carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation. However, most studies focus on synergies between these functions while neglecting their complex trade-offs. Therefore, identifying integrated approaches that simultaneously enhance carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation within multi-objective spatial optimization has become an urgent research priority. Using the Hangzhou metropolitan area as a case study, regional carbon sinks and bird habitats were quantified using the Carnegie–Ames–Stanford approach (CASA) and MaxEnt models. Core areas were identified using Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA) to extract carbon sink and bird habitat hubs, and resistance surfaces were constructed using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and habitat suitability inversion. Circuit theory was then applied to construct carbon sink and bird habitat Green Infrastructure Networks (GINs), which were coupled to form a multi-functional carbon–bird habitat GIN. The network was evaluated for connectivity and robustness, and community detection was applied to explore its structure and inform ecological management. The results identified 133 carbon sequestration corridors and 171 bird habitat corridors. Coupling the two GINs produced a multi-functional network with dual carbon–bird habitat synergies, including 34 intersection points and 68 composite hubs. Unlike previous studies focused on single-function GINs, this study emphasizes synergy among multiple ecological functions. The findings indicate that the multi-functional GIN reduces uncertainty in multi-objective optimization, shifting GIN planning from single-objective management to coordinated multi-objective governance. This approach increases structural redundancy and functional resilience, thereby enhancing overall network robustness and connectivity.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060935

Authors: Martina Borini Carmen Angelillo Carlo Peraboni

Contemporary cities face environmental, social and economic challenges that highlight the vulnerabilities of urban structures, spatial connections, infrastructure and socio-economic systems. These critical issues have been amplified by the pandemic and the intensification of climate change, generating significant impacts on the territory. In this uncertain context, urban planning plays a crucial role in responding to the new needs of cities, promoting proximity and environmental sustainability, and encouraging adaptation and proactive responses to change. The research aims to promote strategic planning based on an integrated and multi-scale approach, capable of generating synergies between the various complex aspects that characterize urban environments. This approach allows spatial relationships and considerations to be articulated at different scales, from the territorial to the local level, translating urban challenges into multi-level actions and strategies. However, this requires a supporting structure on which to articulate multiple urban planning strategies, resulting from the overlap and interrelation of two complementary design urban backbones: the proximity one, aimed at connecting services and public spaces through wide slow mobility networks; the natural one, aimed at integrating green areas on different scales, with both ecological functions, to promote biodiversity, and social functions, to improve collective well-being and strengthen the resilience of the urban ecosystem. The complementarity of these two backbones was explored through the revision of the Territorial Government Plan of the City of Mantua, particularly within the Services Plan, as part of the research project entitled “Re-knowing Urban Complexity through New City Awareness: In Search of Urban Proximity Systems.” This research provided an opportunity to read and interpret the urban complexity of the city while guiding effective, sustainable, and resilient intervention strategies in response to its ongoing transformations.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060934

Authors: Shanza Neda Hussain Mohamed Al-Mandhari Syed Muhammad Faiq Ali Asim Zaib Aritra Ghosh

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Land doi: 10.3390/land15060933

Authors: Qike Yang Zhiding Hu Zhe Zhang Yingxin Li

Existing studies on city-regionalism as geopolitical processes tend to overuse the concept of the “state” or conflate the roles of the state and the central government. To explore the joint operation of central and local governments in city-regionalism as geopolitical processes, this paper proposes an analytical framework of city-region strategic coupling. This framework emphasizes that although the interests and objectives of the central and local governments are not completely identical, both sides realize strategic coupling through dynamic adjustment and strategic interaction under changing contexts. In this way, the city-region can both serve national strategies and meet local developmental demands, thereby advancing city-regionalism as geopolitical processes. Taking the Kunming city-region in China as a case study, this paper shows that the central government has supported the Kunming city-region through infrastructure investment so that it may become a radiation center facing Southeast Asia, thereby strengthening geopolitical and geoeconomic relations with Southeast Asian countries. The Yunnan government has not merely acted as a passive executor but has also used national strategies to achieve its own local development goals.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060932

Authors: Ali Güneş

Multi-source agricultural land-cover mapping is important for food-system monitoring, sustainable land management, and climate-adaptation planning, yet obtaining reliable labels remains difficult in heterogeneous landscapes. This paper presents a climate-aware, label-efficient active learning framework for reducing annotation demands in agricultural mapping. The framework uses multi-source predictors derived from Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, ERA5 climatological variables, and topographic context to prioritize informative samples under constrained labeling budgets. In the main benchmark, uncertainty-guided and diversity-aware sampling achieved a macro F1-score of 0.827 while using fewer than 40% of the training labels used by the same-pool supervised baseline. Additional feature-group and cross-regional experiments showed that agro-environmental context improves robustness, particularly under regional domain shift. Overall, the results indicate that uncertainty-guided, diversity-aware active learning is a practical Geo-AI strategy for reducing annotation requirements in climate-relevant agricultural monitoring within the scope of binary crop/non-crop mapping over ML-ready feature time series.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060931

Authors: Zhiqiang Lu Jirong Yan Luge Wen

Regional coordinated development is crucial for both human well-being and high-quality economic and social progress. This study examines 286 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2021, constructing a comprehensive evaluation system for regional coordinated development across four dimensions: economic development, public services, infrastructure, and technological development. The entropy weighting method is employed to measure comprehensive development, while the coefficient of variation is used to assess the level of coordinated development, enabling a systematic analysis of China’s spatio-temporal characteristics of regional coordinated development. The results indicate that China’s comprehensive development level has continuously improved, with coordinated development among prefecture-level cities gradually rising. Regional disparities persist, showing a decreasing spatial gradient from east to central to west. The North–South development gap shows a pattern of fluctuating widening, with uncoordinated development between these regions intensifying. Coordination in economic development, public services, and technological development continues to improve across regions, whereas infrastructure coordination shows a declining trend. Considering both comprehensive development and intra-regional coordination, the South shows high development but low coordination, while the North presents low development alongside high coordination.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060930

Authors: Hong Leng Tianyu Zhang

Urban shrinkage has evolved from a localized phenomenon into a systemic challenge within China’s rapid urbanization, rendering traditional growth-oriented planning paradigms increasingly obsolete. However, existing research often treats shrinkage as either a passive outcome or an isolated shock, lacking a holistic perspective on how complex urban systems can adapt and reorganize under prolonged decline. This study constructs a coupling framework integrating urban shrinkage with Social–Ecological System (SES) resilience to bridge this theoretical gap. Drawing on a systematic literature review of 76 peer-reviewed articles following the PRISMA guidelines, we identify six core dimensions that drive this coupling. These dimensions consist of distinct physical and social elements. Our analysis reveals that the interactions between rigid physical environments and highly fluid social elements trigger nonlinear cascading feedback loops. While demographic contraction amplifies systemic risks, the subsequent structural release provides crucial spatial and institutional room for right-sizing. To translate these mechanisms into actionable governance strategies within the Chinese context, we propose a dual-track paradigm. Regionally, strategies emphasize collaborative risk monitoring, cross-boundary factor substitution, and industrial functional complementarity to mitigate vulnerability spillover. Locally, planning needs to pivot toward systemic downsizing and social empowerment, integrating proactive spatial reduction with agile service provision and community capacity-building. Ultimately, integrating structural reconfiguration with grassroots social learning enables shrinking cities to establish a new resilient equilibrium. While anchored in the Chinese context, this dual-track governance paradigm offers transferable insights for global shrinking cities seeking to overcome structural lock-in and foster adaptive SES resilience.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060928

Authors: Ying He Li Peng Muzi Li

Land-use/land-cover change (LULC) fundamentally alters regional ecosystem service provisioning, necessitating multi-scenario simulations coupled with multi-objective optimization (MOP) to inform territorial spatial governance. This study develops an integrated PLUS-InVEST-MOP framework to simulate land-use dynamics and their ecological consequences in the Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, a critical ecological barrier on the northeastern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. Utilizing GlobeLand30 data (2000–2020), we projected 2030 land-use patterns under four scenarios (natural development, ecological conservation, economic development, and climate change) and quantified spatiotemporal variations in carbon storage and habitat quality. Results showed that grassland degradation accelerated during 2010–2020, with 1202.43 km2 converted primarily to bare ground, contrasting with restoration gains observed in 2000–2010. Elevation emerged as the predominant natural driver of glacial and forestland expansion, whereas demographic and economic factors governed land encroachment on artificial surfaces. Under the climate change scenario, habitat quality declined by 3.78% (to 0.596), and carbon storage decreased by 70.04 Tg relative to 2020, underscoring the vulnerability of alpine ecosystems to warming. Conversely, the MOP-optimized scenario achieved synergistic improvements in carbon sequestration (+1.8% vs. 2020) and habitat quality (+2.3% vs. 2020) while adhering to arable land preservation targets (≥54,800 ha) and constraints on artificial surfaces. These findings provide quantitative decision support for balancing ecological conservation and sustainable development in high-altitude cold regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060929

Authors: Anita Kwartnik-Pruc Teresa Front-Dąbrowska

This study examines the role of cadastral data quality in shaping risks within investment processes, focusing on the Polish Land and Buildings Register as a key information source for surveying, planning, and design activities. The research is based on an empirical analysis of cadastral data from twelve study areas representing different settlement types, using datasets obtained in 2022 and 2026. Data quality was evaluated in terms of completeness, accuracy, and currency, with particular emphasis on boundary points, land use classifications, and building records. The results reveal significant spatial disparities, with higher data quality observed in large urban areas and lower quality in smaller towns and rural municipalities, where incomplete, inconsistent, or data derived from raster maps are more prevalent. At the same time, a noticeable improvement in data quality was identified over the analysed period, particularly in less urbanised areas. Despite this progress, inconsistencies in attribute definitions, limited standardisation, and gaps in data documentation persist, reducing reliability and interoperability. The findings demonstrate that inadequate cadastral data quality generates legal, technical, temporal, and financial risks, primarily manifested in delays and increased costs due to additional surveying work. A plan has been drawn up to optimise the investor’s activities, taking into account the risks identified during the research.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060927

Authors: Uduak Ita Edet Ataharul Chowdhury Khondokar H. Kabir Nasir Abbas Khan

This study analyzes how agri-food misinformation is generated within Nigeria’s agricultural information systems and its influence on climate change adaptation. Using a mixed-methods approach, data from online surveys with 128 farmers and semi-structured interviews with key actors were analyzed through binary logistic regression and thematic analysis. Findings reveal that public extension agents are the most trusted actors, but their infrequent contact with farmers leaves a communication void, which is filled by other farmers within the social group. These informal channels serve as primary conduits for the unintentional spread of agri-food misinformation, often rooted in honest technical misinterpretations. When linked to socio-economic factors such as age and experience, this agri-food misinformation negatively influences adaptation decisions, leading farmers to abandon resilient practices like crop rotation and cover cropping during critical climate shocks. The study concludes that farmers are central, though unintentional, actors in the creation of agri-food misinformation. Addressing this challenge requires a coordinated agricultural information system that prioritizes direct communication, institutionalizes verification processes, and enhances farmers’ capacity to validate formal information.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060926

Authors: Wun Puo Lim Shih Yin Ooi Yee Jian Chew Ying Han Pang Sheriza Mohd Razali Yeong Khang Lee

Landslides are among the most destructive geological hazards in Malaysia, especially in mountainous and forested areas. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery offers high spatial resolution and flexible data capture, but deep learning performance is highly sensitive to training hyperparameters. In this study, the TransU-Net model for UAV-based landslide detection was adopted and a systematic ablation study on learning-rate and epoch settings using a coarse-to-fine tuning strategy. The Berembun Forest Reserve dataset was first used to determine the optimal training configuration. Then, the optimised configuration was tested on multiple UAV sub-datasets in the CAS Landslide dataset to evaluate performance stability under different terrain properties and spatial resolutions. The optimised configuration yielded the best F1-score (0.9598) and IoU of 0.9507 on the Berembun Forest Reserve dataset, and consistently high F1-scores across the evaluated CAS Landslide sub-datasets. Qualitative visualisation analysis also revealed good spatial correspondence between the predicted segmentation masks and the ground-truth annotations. Variations in Intersection over Union (IoU) values were mainly associated with boundary delineation uncertainty rather than severe misclassification. Overall, the results show that the performance of UAV-based landslide segmentation can improve by systematic hyperparameter tuning, and the optimised TransU-Net configuration under the evaluated terrain conditions yields promising results.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060925

Authors: Daer Su Ruochen Yang Hongyu Li Tongguang Zang Fuhao Sun Wanyue Ren Takeshi Kinoshita

Urban wildscapes (UWS), characterized by low levels of management and spontaneous vegetation, are increasingly recognized as components of blue–green infrastructure with potential benefits for climate adaptation, health equity, and socio-ecological resilience. However, these benefits depend on individuals’ actual environmental exposure in daily life, which is shaped by mobility, activity patterns, and temporal constraints, leading to unequal access across social groups. Despite this, existing research has largely focused on public perceptions and acceptance of UWS, with limited attention to whether such evaluations reflect real-world exposure processes. This study conducts a systematic review of 30 empirical studies, examining spatial types, evaluation methods and media, and psychological dimensions. The results reveal three patterns: a focus on marginal spaces, the dominance of visual media and scale-based methods, and an emphasis on affective and cognitive responses over functional dimensions. These findings suggest that current research captures mediated perceptions rather than lived exposure, potentially constraining understanding of health outcomes and equity. This paper calls for a shift toward an exposure-oriented framework integrating mobility, activity spaces, and environmental contact.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060924

Authors: Feng Gao Chunjie Qi Fan Zhang

Cultivated Land “Non-grain” Rectification is reshaping crop allocation across China, yet whether the policy promotes or impedes agricultural growth remains contested. This paper argues that the same uniform regulation generates spatially heterogeneous outcomes along a continuous topographic relief: strict enforcement on contiguous plain farmland raises compliance costs for horticultural production and displaces it toward higher-elevation counties, where land-use rules bind less tightly and micro-climates favor cash crops. Using a panel of 2077 Chinese counties from 2019 to 2023, we construct a municipal-level measure of rectification intensity from government work reports and examine how its effect varies with county-level terrain relief. The results show that the marginal effect of policy intensity on agricultural value added rises monotonically with terrain, turning from negative in flat plains to increasingly positive beyond 0.5–1.0 km of relief; at the sample mean a one-standard-deviation increase in policy intensity raises agricultural value added by about 0.36 percent, and at 2 km of relief by 1.16 percent. The mechanism is spatial reallocation, not land expansion. Rectification shrinks horticultural area in plains and expands it in mountains. A Moran’s I test confirms this: counties with very different terrain show opposite changes in orchard cover. Further heterogeneity tests indicate that rectification primarily promotes the relocation and expansion of fruit orchards toward higher-relief counties. The growth effect is stronger where transport networks are denser, whereas water endowment does not significantly moderate the effect. Results are robust to alternative keyword classifications, concurrent-policy controls, and two instrumental-variable strategies.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060922

Authors: Qi Zhang Kaisheng Long

At the present stage, driven by China’s “Three Types of Land” reform policies, the inter-action between urban and rural construction land (URCL) has evolved from an administratively dominated allocation structure toward a market-oriented one. Under the impetus of urban–rural transition, China’s urban and rural construction land has developed a symbiotic relationship characterized by internal factor mobility and external environmental constraints. This study develops a symbiosis indicator system and applies a logistic model to quantitatively evaluate the symbiotic relationship between urban construction land and rural construction land from 2009 to 2024 and to trace its evolutionary patterns. The results reveal the following: The symbiotic relationship gradually transitions from competitive symbiosis to mutualistic symbiosis, yet it exhibits frequent fluctuations and occasional transient reversions to competition, indicating that mutualism remains unstable. Urban construction land dominates during competitive symbiosis, whereas rural construction land dominates during mutualistic symbiosis; urban dominance within mutualistic phases occurs only sporadically. The marketization of rural construction land (measured by the leased and sold area and associated income) accelerates efficient urban—rural cooperation; land expropriation and the urbanization rate are key drivers shifting the relationship from competition to mutualism. However, excessive reliance on urbanization may impede the market structure of rural construction land and disrupt the established mutualistic pattern.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060923

Authors: Víctor Olivero-Ortiz Carlos Robles-Algarín Andrés Camilo Pardo Gutiérrez John Taborda Carolina Diosa Rosas

This study develops a GIS-based multicriteria decision analysis framework to assess the territorial suitability of onshore wind energy in Colombia. The proposed approach combines technical and socio-environmental suitability modelling with territorial interpretation based on conflict and governance, moving beyond conventional siting models focused mainly on wind resource availability and infrastructure proximity. The technical assessment included wind speed, wind power density, terrain slope, land cover, land use, and proximity to electrical grids, main roads, settlements, and water bodies. In addition, a National Conflict Index and a National Governance Index were constructed to represent broader territorial conditions that may affect project implementation. Quantitative variables, including wind speed, wind power density, terrain slope, and distance-based criteria, were transformed onto a common suitability scale using linear fuzzy membership functions, whereas qualitative variables, including land cover and land use, were incorporated through categorical reclassification. The National Conflict Index and National Governance Index were first constructed using CRITIC to obtain objective weights for their internal variables. Subsequently, the final onshore wind suitability criteria were weighted through the linear Best–Worst Method based on expert judgment. The standardized suitability layers and corresponding BWM-derived weights were integrated through weighted spatial overlay to generate a national suitability map, while the conflict and governance indices were used to interpret the territorial conditions associated with the resulting suitable areas. The results show a highly selective territorial pattern, with the most favorable areas concentrated mainly in La Guajira (1286.09 km2) and Cesar (574.45 km2), and more fragmented secondary opportunities in Nariño, Boyacá, Norte de Santander, Cundinamarca, Atlántico, and Magdalena. Three territorial intervention scenarios were identified: priority intervention, complementary or selective development, and low relative priority. The main contribution of the study is the articulation of a BWM-weighted technical and socio-environmental suitability model with CRITIC-based conflict and governance indices, offering a replicable framework to support strategic planning and public policy decisions for onshore wind deployment in Colombia.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060920

Authors: Jeongmin Kim Birte Meller Junhee Woo Amarpreet Singh Arora Thorsten Schuetze

Urban areas are increasingly vulnerable to climate-related stresses such as heatwaves, flooding, and resource inefficiencies, requiring integrated, data-driven strategies to enhance resilience and sustainability. This study presents a modular assessment and planning framework that combines Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Building Information Modeling (BIM), City Information Modeling (CIM), microclimate simulations (ENVI-met, SWMM), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and remote sensing within a unified decision support interface (DSI). The framework operates across multiple spatial scales—from individual buildings to entire cities—to assess climate vulnerability, support evidence-based urban regeneration, and inform sustainable renovation strategies. It enables the identification of multifunctional interventions that reduce climate risks while improving energy efficiency, resource management, and environmental quality. Urban areas are classified based on their exposure and sensitivity to climate stressors, providing a systematic basis for prioritizing adaptation and mitigation measures. The approach is validated through a case study in Daegu, Republic of Korea, a city facing an aging building stock and increasing climatic pressures. The framework is presented as a conceptual design operating at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 3–4, indicating that it has passed its proof-of-concept, with key components including ENVI-met microclimate simulations and Sentinel-2/Landsat remote sensing processing demonstrably operational for the Daegu context. Illustrative performance benchmarks drawn from the peer-reviewed literature demonstrate that framework-guided interventions can achieve urban heat island reductions of 1.5–4.0 °C via green roof and reflective surface combinations; stormwater runoff reductions of 30–60% through sustainable urban drainage systems; and building energy savings of 25–45 kWh/m2/yr from deep façade renovation. Its modular and transferable design ensures applicability across diverse urban contexts with similar climatic and infrastructural challenges.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060921

Authors: Mingwei Yuan Jin-Oh Kim

Urbanization and climate change are increasing pluvial flooding risks, thereby intensifying the need for more adaptive stormwater governance in Chinese Sponge City projects. Although public participation is widely recognized as important, current research frequently conceptualizes it as a simplified or static attribute and seldom provides explicit criteria for identifying representative projects in large urban portfolios. This study develops a life cycle-sensitive framework for evaluating public participation in Sponge City projects by conducting a cross-city comparison in China. The study integrates project inventory construction, evidence-based representative project selection, and a multidimensional participation measurement tool covering breadth, depth, identity, and potential across planning, design, construction, and maintenance using five national pilot cities: Jinan, Shanghai, Xiamen, Shenzhen, and Wuhan. The results show that the five representative projects display distinct life cycle participation profiles, rather than a single participation pattern, influenced by project type and governance arrangement. Maintenance emerges as the strongest documented stage, whereas design is the weakest, suggesting stronger documented governance continuity after project delivery than in front-end co-design. Recurrent weaknesses remain in substantive inclusion and feedback-adoption closure. Overall, the study frames participation as a structured governance capability, providing an auditable comparative framework for identifying participation strengths and weaknesses in Sponge City governance.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060919

Authors: Cláudia Guedes Ana Catarina Sequeira Francisco Castro Rego Luís Martins Domingos Lopes Maria Emília Silva Leónia Nunes

Urban forests and green spaces provide important ecosystem services that support climate adaptation, public health, and urban sustainability. Despite growing evidence from individual Portuguese cities, nationwide data on how citizens perceive, use, and support the governance of urban green spaces remain limited. This study addresses that gap through a nationwide online survey conducted in Portugal in 2024, gathering 927 valid responses from Portuguese adults across metropolitan, intermediate-density, and low-density municipalities, to investigate public perceptions of ecosystem services, patterns of green space use, management challenges, and attitudes toward urban forestry governance policies. Results revealed strongly positive perceptions of urban trees and green spaces across all sociodemographic groups, with over 95% of respondents acknowledging that urban green spaces positively influence physical and mental health. Regulating services, including air quality improvement, urban noise reduction, climate change mitigation, and flood mitigation, received the highest levels of agreement, while cultural ecosystem services were positively perceived but with comparatively lower agreement. Accessibility emerged as a critical determinant of visitation frequency: 85% of respondents could reach a green space within 15 min, and 82% of daily users lived within 300 m of one, broadly consistent with the 3 + 30 + 300 principle. Frequent visitation was primarily associated with relaxation, physical activity, and social interaction. Conversely, only 6% considered that trees cause more damage than benefits, with pavement damage and superficial roots cited as the more significant management challenges. Support for public investment was broad, with over 90% of respondents favouring allocating municipal tax revenues to urban tree management. However, 68% remained unfamiliar with Law No. 59/2021, revealing a gap between public support and policy awareness. These findings establish a national baseline to support municipalities in developing more resilient, inclusive, and health-promoting urban environments in the face of climate change, as they align urban forestry practices with citizens’ expectations.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060918

Authors: Donghao Duan Dong Qiao Nengsheng Luo Yongsheng Wang

This study examines the relationship between rural land circulation and common prosperity across 30 Chinese provinces over the period 2010–2022. We construct a multidimensional common prosperity index based on economic development, income distribution, public services, and social security using the entropy weight method. A Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) is employed to capture both local effects and interregional spillovers. The results show that rural land circulation exerts a positive and statistically significant impact on common prosperity. Effect decomposition further indicates that the influence is primarily driven by local (direct) effects, while spatial spillovers also play a meaningful role, suggesting that improvements in one region can generate positive externalities for neighboring areas. Additional analysis reveals three key channels through which land circulation is associated with common prosperity: improvements in agricultural productivity, increases in farmer income, and urbanization advancement. The effects exhibit clear regional heterogeneity, being strongest in central China, moderate in western regions, and statistically insignificant in the eastern provinces, reflecting diminishing marginal returns as land markets mature. Moreover, the impact of land circulation is more pronounced in regions with higher levels of digital economy development, indicating that digitalization enhances the efficiency and inclusiveness of land market transactions. These findings are robust to alternative spatial weight matrices, variable definitions, and sample adjustments. Overall, the results highlight the importance of regionally differentiated land circulation policies and the role of market integration in promoting balanced and inclusive development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060917

Authors: Yujia Zhai Xinyu Zhang Jingyao Yu Yang Xiao Yimeng Li Binbin Fan

High eye-level greenness could bring multiple health benefits, and multiple kinds of street view images (SVI) have been widely used in measuring green view index (GVI). However, how street view image-based GVI (GVI_SVI) aligns with pedestrians’ perspective remains unknown. This study compared the GVI_SVI calculated using different SVI (view angle of 60°, view angle of 90°, panoramic) with the GVI computed using on-site taken photos imitating pedestrians’ perspective. The influences of road width and road greenery level are also examined in the comparison. The study was conducted in Yangpu district, Shanghai, China, and 194 sampling points on different types of roads with various greenery levels were involved in the study. The results indicated that GVI_SVI is significantly correlated to that from pedestrians’ perspective. GVI_SVI based on the SVI with a 60° field of view shows the smallest differences from that of pedestrians’ perspective. GVI_SVI for front and back views is closer to GVI of pedestrian’s perspective. GVI on wide roads, and streets with higher levels of greenery are more likely to be underestimated by GVI_SVI. This study explored how GVI_SVI may represent GVI from the pedestrians’ perspective as well as identified related factors. This study could provide valuable insights for the application of street view images in measuring street GVI.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060916

Authors: Feng Wang Ziyi Wang Huizhi Gao Sidong Zhao

The governance of land use carbon emissions is pivotal to achieving the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Rural revitalization significantly shapes the spatiotemporal patterns and evolutionary dynamics of land use carbon emissions, yet this relationship has received inadequate attention in existing literature. This study employs a combination of decoupling models, the Boston Matrix, spatial analysis, and interpretable machine learning models to conduct an empirical analysis of 124 regions in western China. The findings reveal diversified spatiotemporal evolution trends in rural revitalization land use carbon emissions. The decoupling relationship between rural revitalization and carbon emissions demonstrates a polarized nature, with over half of the assessed regions experiencing negative decoupling effects. The role of impact factors in decoupling relationships is characterized by a mixed nature, hierarchical intensity, nonlinear pathways, spatial heterogeneity and autocorrelation. The pathways of factor effects display nonlinear forms such as wave-like, inverted U-shaped, and U-shaped patterns, with the nature and intensity of effects dynamically shifting between “threshold mutations” and “inflection reversals” as factors evolve. The spatiotemporal evolution patterns, decoupling relationships, and SHAP values all exhibit significant spatial autocorrelation and form “spatial clusters” of various shapes. The decoupling of rural revitalization and carbon emissions in western China constitutes a complex systemic endeavor, necessitating comprehensive analysis from multiple dimensions—encompassing spatiotemporal evolution patterns, decoupling relationship, nonlinear mechanisms, and spatial effects—followed by the formulation of differentiated and precision-targeted governance strategies.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060915

Authors: Ronglei Yang Tiyan Shen Wenqing Yin Hanchen Yu

Over the past three decades, geographically weighted regression (GWR) and multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) have become essential tools for spatial analysis in urban, environmental, and land-use research. This scoping review systematically maps and synthesizes the global literature on GWR and MGWR published between 1996 and 2026, aiming to identify the research hotspots, evolutionary paths, and cutting-edge trends. Bibliometrics and CiteSpace visualization tools are used to conduct a multi-dimensional visual analysis of thousands of selected articles, including countries, institutions, core authors, highly cited keywords, and key documents. The results show that the current research focuses on spatial heterogeneity, multiscale analysis, GWR model optimization, non-stationarity characterization, and simulation of urban land-use change. Potential future directions include the construction of spatiotemporal integrated models, the integration of high-performance computing, and the expansion of interdisciplinary applications. The results of this study can help scholars fully understand the current research status and future directions, and provide a scientific spatial analysis framework for practitioners in urban planning, land resource management, and environmental assessment. Furthermore, the conclusions can provide theoretical support and a decision-making basis for the government to formulate intelligent and refined urban development policies.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060914

Authors: Yifan Wu Sheng Jiao Wenting Liu Yan Yu Kaiyin Xiao

Hydro-cultural heritage is shaped by strong hydrological dependence and historical accessibility. To address insufficient identification of river-basin heritage linkages and their weak translation into graded protection, this study develops an analytical framework integrating heritage-site evaluation, cultural source identification, resistance-surface construction, potential corridor extraction, network grading, and protection guidance, and applies it to the Xiangjiang River Basin, China. Heritage sites were evaluated by protection level, historical continuity, spatial proximity, and hydro-cultural relevance. Cultural source areas were identified using weighted kernel density analysis, potential corridors were extracted using the minimum cumulative resistance model, and the graded corridor network was examined using network-structure indices. The results show river-oriented clustering, localized nucleation, and belt-like extension. Eight primary and fourteen supplementary cultural source areas were identified. Potential corridors are concentrated along the Xiangjiang main stem and major tributaries. In the resistance-surface construction, distance to the water system received the highest AHP-derived resistance weight, while GeoDetector showed that it had the highest, although modest, single-factor explanatory power among the tested variables for corridor spatial differentiation. The corridor network exhibits a primary–secondary–tertiary graded structure. This study reveals the spatial continuity and hierarchy of hydro-cultural heritage corridors and provides a methodological reference for river-basin conservation.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060913

Authors: Tianyu Wang Yanying Wei

Under China’s dual-carbon agenda, a central question is whether the Low-Carbon City (LCC) pilot policy reduces energy intensity, whether this effect can be credibly interpreted as causal, and under which conditions and through which channels it operates. Using a balanced panel of 282 prefecture-level and higher-level cities from 2006 to 2023, this study develops a problem-oriented framework that integrates effect identification, credibility validation, and heterogeneity and mechanism analysis. The average treatment effect is estimated using staggered difference-in-differences, while dynamic effects are identified with interaction-weighted and imputation-based event-study estimators, and selection concerns are further addressed through propensity score matching difference-in-differences and a battery of stability checks. The results show that the LCC pilot policy reduces urban energy intensity, with the baseline estimate implying a decline of about 15%–16%, and that the policy effect accumulates over time rather than appearing immediately. This finding remains stable across alternative specifications, placebo tests, and matched-sample estimation. The policy effect is stronger in cities with higher initial energy intensity and higher levels of economic development. Mechanistic evidence indicates that adjustments in fixed asset investment and changes in AI-related resource allocation are two observable channels associated with the decline in energy intensity. By focusing on energy intensity as a process-oriented performance indicator, this study provides more direct evidence on the energy-efficiency consequences of low-carbon urban governance and clarifies the conditional and structural foundations of policy effectiveness.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060912

Authors: Daokun Chen Dongxiang Jiang Liang Wang Xinbin Li Boyuan Chen Zhanbin Wang Ke Yang

Addressing capacity assessment uncertainties in high-geological-background areas, this study develops a source-oriented risk assessment framework integrating spatial interpolation, source apportionment, and dynamic capacity modeling. Analysis of 39 surface soil samples (As, Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb, Se, pH) from ankang basin, China, reveals: Two heavy metal sources were quantitatively identified via APCS-MLR. Natural sources (71.94%) dominate, contributing Se, Cd, Cu, Zn, and Ni, with Cd primarily geogenic. Anthropogenic sources (28.06%) from industrial, transportation, and agricultural activities contribute Cr, As, Pb, and Ni. Static capacity assessment identifies Cd as the primary limiting element (average capacity 0.22). Dynamic model predictions indicate that the 20-year dynamic capacity of all elements is only 14–20% of the theoretical static capacity (Qi), representing 16–47% of the current existing capacity, and will approach dynamic equilibrium after 40 years. Source-oriented capacity indices reveal natural sources pose the highest comprehensive risk (SPI = 0.916), mainly driving Cd capacity stress (SPICd = 0.34). Anthropogenic sources remain safe (SPI > 1.255) but warrant Pb monitoring. This framework supports precise management of selenium-rich lands, shifting strategies from emission control to avoiding high-risk geological units.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060911

Authors: Liqing Zhu Benyun Song Jie Kong

Restoration-oriented forest management is increasingly recognized as an important strategy for enhancing long-term carbon sequestration and rehabilitating degraded peri-urban forest landscapes. This study presents a scenario-based assessment of projected carbon sequestration trajectories under a National Reserve Forest Project implemented in peri-urban Wuhan, central China. Thirteen silvicultural models were grouped into three management pathways: intensive plantation cultivation, transformation of existing degraded stands, and tending of young and middle-aged forests. Carbon sequestration was evaluated over a 40-year assessment period (2024–2063) using a Biomass Expansion Factor-based accounting framework incorporating above- and belowground biomass, harvested wood products, and conservative baseline deductions consistent with national and provincial methodologies. The results indicate a sustained long-term increase in projected carbon sequestration despite periodic short-term declines associated with planned thinning and harvesting cycles. Transformation-oriented pathways contributed the largest cumulative project-scale sequestration and generally exhibited relatively strong area-normalized sequestration performance compared with intensive plantation and tending pathways. Intensive plantation systems displayed greater temporal fluctuation associated with shorter rotation cycles and repeated harvesting events. The analysis also highlights the importance of distinguishing between area-normalized sequestration efficiency and cumulative project-scale contribution, as models with moderate per-hectare performance generated substantial total carbon benefits because of their larger implementation area. The findings suggest that restoration-oriented management of existing degraded stands may provide a relatively stable long-term carbon-sequestration pathway in peri-urban forest systems where land availability for large-scale afforestation is constrained. The study also demonstrates the applicability of conservative scenario-based accounting frameworks for restoration-oriented forest carbon assessment and planning under data-limited conditions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060910

Authors: Yao Cui Hongrui Sun Yaolin Liu Ligang Wang Yanfang Liu Rui An Xinyue Zhang Yifan Xie Lin Zhang Jiwei Xu

Non-grain use of cultivated land (NGUCL) in ecologically fragile regions has become a major challenge to food security and land sustainability, yet its spatiotemporal dynamics, spatial spillover effects, and associated factors remain insufficiently understood. Taking Ningxia, China, as a typical semi-arid to arid transition zone, this study developed a phenology-informed framework that combined multi-temporal Landsat imagery, random forest classification, spatial autocorrelation analysis, centroid and standard deviation ellipse models, and a spatial lag model to identify and analyze NGUCL in 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020. Within the cultivated land boundary, NGUCL was further decomposed into cash crop-cultivated farmland (CCCF) and farmland abandonment (FA). The results show that the classification framework achieved robust performance, with overall accuracies above 85% across the benchmark years. Food-crop mapping reached an OA of 86.38–90.12% and a Kappa of 0.80–0.85, while FA mapping reached an OA of 85.60–86.74% and a Kappa of 0.70–0.72. NGUCL in Ningxia exhibited strong subregional differentiation under the gradients of northern irrigation, central arid, and southern mountainous conditions. CCCF was more closely associated with irrigated and agriculturally productive areas, whereas FA was concentrated in ecologically constrained counties and showed stronger dispersion and migration complexity. Spatial econometric results further indicate significant spatial spillover effects, suggesting that NGUCL-related processes in one county are associated with those in neighboring counties. The effects of natural, socioeconomic, and agricultural production factors also varied by type and period, indicating that NGUCL in ecologically fragile regions is not a homogeneous land-use transition process. By distinguishing CCCF from FA, this study provides a more nuanced interpretation of NGUCL and offers empirical evidence for understanding cultivated land transition and governance in ecologically fragile areas.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060909

Authors: Yongliang Wang Surigala Tai Yongchun Li Rong She Wenpeng Shi

Understanding the spatial heterogeneity of deep soil organic matter is critical for terrestrial carbon cycling, yet its driving mechanisms remain elusive due to a historical research bias toward surface layers. This study develops a 3D spatial prediction and mechanistic framework for Soil organic matter(SOM) across a 0–200 cm profile in the Mollisols of the Songnen Plain, Northeast China. By integrating systematic sampling with Random Forest modeling and a comprehensive suite of multi-source environmental covariates, we identified pronounced vertical stratification in SOM distribution and its governing factors. Our results reveal that surface SOM is primarily driven by climate, vegetation, and anthropogenic activities, whereas deep soil organic matter is dictated by intrinsic physicochemical properties and surface matrix compositions. Furthermore, significant interaction effects between topography and soil attributes further enhance SOM accumulation. This research clarifies the depth-dependent processes of carbon stabilization, providing a robust scientific basis for the targeted conservation and carbon sequestration enhancement of Mollisols.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060908

Authors: Antonia Marketaki Areti Tseliou Evgenia Tousi Athina Mela Efthimios Zervas

Rising temperatures within the urban context, as a result of climate change and the Urban Heat Island effect, have deteriorated thermal comfort conditions in outdoor urban spaces, especially during hot, Mediterranean summer days. This study investigates the potential cooling effects of integrating individual urban green spaces into a connected network, with the aim of improving thermal conditions in public areas. Thermal conditions of an 800 m2 urban area in the city of Athens, Greece, were evaluated for a typical summer day using the environmental model ENVI-met. Based on an assessment of the current microclimatic conditions, a potential thermal adaptation strategy was developed, aiming to redesign the study area as a network of green-blue infrastructure. This includes a 1.5 km walking route connecting various spaces, such as squares, parks, and schools. Air temperature (Tair) and the bioclimatic index PET (Physiologically Equivalent Temperature) were used to evaluate the thermal conditions of the study area. In addition, a new function of the ENVI-met model, Dynamic Comfort, has been implemented to calculate the dynamic Physiological Equivalent Temperature (dPET) index for the selected route. The results revealed significant Tair and PET reductions compared to the current layout, indicating that the integration of open spaces into a network of green-blue infrastructure can improve thermal conditions and reduce the hazardous effects of thermal stress on people. Some notable results include the spatial and temporal decrease of the Tair of up to 6 °C, mainly in the proximity of buildings and fountains. Similarly, PET values decreased mainly by 3 to 5 °C. The Dynamic PET showed a slight reduction during the hours of maximum temperature and a higher decrease during the evening, ranging from 1 to 2 °C.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060907

Authors: Yinghao Zhang Zhaoxin Liu Xuechun Sun Conghui Zhu Jinghui Zhao

The rapid expansion of the digital economy is reshaping urban systems, yet the pathways through which digitalization drives urban green land use transition remain insufficiently understood. Using panel data from 279 Chinese cities, we measure Urban Green Land Use Efficiency (UGLUE) via a super-efficiency Slack-Based Measure (SBM) model and estimate digital economy effects through double machine learning (DML). We find that digital technology, digital industry, and digital infrastructure all positively influence UGLUE, with digital technology exerting the strongest effect, followed by digital industry, while digital infrastructure exerts the weakest direct effect. Urban spatial compactness (USC) mediates this relationship, functioning as a dominant transmission channel for both digital industry and digital technology, and a supplementary yet significant pathway for digital infrastructure, indicating that digitalization enhances UGLUE in part by promoting more compact urban forms. Effects are heterogeneous, as resource-based and old industrial cities benefit more from technological upgrades, while cities with higher administrative status gain more from broader digital development. These findings identify USC as a key transition pathway linking digitalization to sustainable land use outcomes, and provide evidence-based support for governance-differentiated digital economy policies that steer urban land use transition toward green and compact development trajectories.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060906

Authors: Sanyarat Meesuwan Jenn-Jaw Soong

From the Red Shirt heartlands of the North and Northeast to the conservative South and the fragmented middle-class electorate of Bangkok, Thailand’s regional divisions reflect a deeply contested relationship with centralized power. How these divisions shape citizens’ relative trust in local versus central government remains an open empirical question. Drawing on three waves of the Asian Barometer Survey conducted between 2014 and 2022 (pooled N = 3600), this study examines whether territorial location produces differential trust in local relative to central government. The findings are mixed. Regional differences are observable in baseline models, but their explanatory power diminishes once individual-level evaluations of political institutions and economic conditions are taken into account. Rural residents exhibit a smaller trust gap, indicating a weaker relative preference for local over central government, consistent with central welfare transfers sustaining support for the central tier. At the contextual level, higher regional poverty rates are associated with a compression of the trust gap between levels of government. Once poverty is introduced, the overall temporal increase observed by 2022 is no longer statistically significant. Structural economic geography explains much of the aggregate shift. Regional dynamics, however, are not uniform. The Northeast diverges sharply in the final wave, and the pattern holds across model specifications. The shift points to accumulated political alienation rooted in repeated episodes of electoral disenfranchisement. The findings carry direct implications for decentralization policy and territorial development strategy. Where regional trust gaps are driven by fiscal constraints on local government and accumulated political alienation, administrative redesign alone cannot restore citizen confidence in sub-national governance.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060905

Authors: Xin Zhang Anming Bao Siyu Chen Shaobo Cai

Photovoltaic desert control (PVDC), an innovative model integrating clean energy development and desertification control, faces complex coordination challenges among local governments, local communities, and photovoltaic enterprises. This study constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model to identify the conditions that drive PVDC toward coordinated governance. The model defines a three-dimensional strategy space: government regulatory intensity (Strong vs. Lax), community willingness to cooperate (Active Cooperation vs. Passive Resistance), and enterprise ecological integration (Active Ecological Integration vs. Passive Land Occupation). Replicator dynamic equations are derived to characterize nonlinear interactions, and the stability conditions of eight pure-strategy equilibrium points are identified through Jacobian matrix eigenvalue analysis. Numerical simulations are conducted using a baseline parameter set that satisfies the Evolutionary Stable Strategy conditions for the ideal equilibrium E8, namely Strong Regulation, Active Cooperation, and Active Ecological Integration. The results show that the system can converge to E8 when higher-level rewards cover government regulation, subsidy, and community-support costs; when community cooperation benefits exceed livelihood opportunity costs and compensation incentives from resistance; and when enterprises’ effective ecological integration costs are lower than the combined benefits of subsidies, avoided fines, and long-term returns. Sensitivity analysis further indicates that government subsidies, fines, community support, cooperation income, and enterprise long-term benefits are key drivers of system evolution, while excessive regulation costs, high opportunity costs, and high ecological integration costs may hinder coordination. Qualitative evidence from four PVDC-related cases in Xinjiang provides practical illustrations broadly consistent with the model mechanisms. This study offers a dynamic analytical framework for designing incentive-compatible governance mechanisms in PVDC and similar multi-stakeholder ecological restoration projects.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060904

Authors: Wuyun Wu Chenghao Zhao Chunmin Zhang

Against the backdrop of China’s “dual carbon” goals and urban green transition, improving urban land use efficiency is essential for shifting land development from extensive expansion to intensive and low-carbon use. Using the Low-Carbon City Pilot Program as a quasi-natural experiment, this study examines panel data from 285 prefecture-level cities in China from 2007 to 2023. We apply a multi-period difference-in-differences model, a threshold regression model, and a spatial Durbin model to assess the program’s impact on urban land use efficiency. The results show that the pilot program significantly improves urban land use efficiency, and the effect persists over time. This finding remains robust across a series of robustness checks. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the efficiency gains are stronger in cities with lower air pollution control pressure, higher industrial pollution control pressure, and lower fiscal pressure. Further threshold analysis shows that digital connectivity is a key condition for strengthening the policy effect. The spatial analysis suggests that the policy effect shows some spatial association. However, the decomposed indirect and total effects are not robust, so the spatial results should be interpreted with caution. This study provides empirical evidence on how low-carbon city pilots affect urban land governance and land use efficiency. Its conclusions, however, remain subject to limitations related to efficiency measurement, policy identification, and the availability of city-level data.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060903

Authors: Yanrun Ren Yaonan Zhang Yufang Min Yanbo Zhao

Soil salinization threatens agricultural sustainability in arid zones, yet quantitative attribution of its spatiotemporal dynamics to multi-source drivers remains scarce at regional scales. To address this, we developed an explainable framework merging Sentinel-1/2, ERA5-Land, and topographic-hydrological indices with XGBoost, trained under weak supervision with proxy labels and independently validated using field-measured ECe. A 7-group, 44-feature ensemble with spatial block 5-fold cross-validation ensured robust assessment. SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) quantified driver contributions and enabled a novel dominant driver zoning (DDZ) framework. Monitoring the Hexi Corridor and Tarim Basin (2017–2024) revealed contrasting trajectories: Hexi’s dynamics were primarily climate-driven (Aridity Index), whereas 19.2% of Tarim showed significant salinization along oasis–desert margins co-dominated by elevation, soil indices, and temperature. The model achieved spatial cross-validation R2 values around 0.65. DDZ mapping showed climate dominance in 98.2% of Hexi compared to 76.5% in Tarim, where terrain and optical factors were more influential. The weak supervision strategy overcomes scarce in-situ measurements, while the DDZ maps identified that Land-use-dominated zones recorded the highest salinity, offering clear directives for targeted salinity control in arid basins.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060902

Authors: Xianyu Wu Guanhao Jin Yanting Zhong Hui Lin

Accurate short-term prediction of urban waterlogging depth is essential for real-time flood risk management in rapidly urbanizing areas under climate variability. Departures from quasi-stationary operating conditions, caused by changes in drainage efficiency, inflow patterns, or measurement quality, weaken historical rainfall–water depth relationships, making purely data-driven models prone to error accumulation. In this study, a GeoAI-based, physics-enhanced machine learning framework is proposed, which translates the water balance principle into Physical Violation Scores (PVSs) and incorporates them as additional input features. PVSs remain zero under expected rainfall–water depth behavior and become positive only under departure scenarios, providing sparse and lightweight diagnostic signals without modifying model structures or loss functions. The framework is implemented on five algorithms (Support Vector Machine, Multilayer Perceptron, Random Forest, Extremely Randomized Trees, and XGBoost) to construct physics-enhanced models (PEMs). These are evaluated against original feature models (OFMs) across 1 h and 2 h forecasting horizons. Results show that most PEMs improve prediction performance compared with their corresponding OFMs, with more pronounced gains at the 2 h horizon. Bootstrap analysis and RMSE-based error amplification factor further indicate comparable or lower R2 variability and reduced recursive error amplification for most PEMs. Interpretability analyses show that rainfall forcing and water-depth persistence remain dominant predictors, whereas PVSs act as auxiliary diagnostic signals. Overall, the proposed framework provides a lightweight, reliable, interpretable, and scalable GeoAI approach for incorporating water balance knowledge into short-term urban waterlogging prediction, supporting climate resilience and smart urban water management.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060901

Authors: Ahmad Fallatah Abdullah Alattas Amer Habibullah Ammar Mandourah Riyan Sahahiri Ahmad Baik Yahya Alshawabkeh Mohamed Elfleet

Mangrove ecosystems provide critical coastal protection, biodiversity support, and carbon storage, yet they remain vulnerable to degradation caused by coastal development, pollution, and climate-related pressures. This study monitors mangrove dynamics in Al-Birk, Asir Region, Saudi Arabia, using Google Earth Engine (GEE), multi-temporal Landsat imagery, spectral indices, and Random Forest (RF) classification. Landsat imagery from 2016 to 2021 was processed to derive NDVI, MSAVI2, EVI, and NDWI, and supervised RF classification was applied to map annual mangrove extent and associated land-cover classes. The RF classifier achieved an overall accuracy of 92.5% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.89. Results indicate that classified mangrove extent increased from approximately 1069 ha in 2016 to 1540 ha in 2021, representing a net gain of 471 ha and a 44% increase over the study period. A localized decline was detected between 2020 and 2021, indicating spatially uneven vegetation dynamics. The findings provide a spatial baseline for monitoring mangrove change and supporting coastal conservation planning in Saudi Arabia. While the detected expansion is temporally consistent with ongoing restoration initiatives, the study does not establish direct causality between policy interventions and observed spatial changes.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060900

Authors: Yige Guan Xintong Du Haiyue Zhao

Urban parks, as essential components of green infrastructure, play a critical role in mitigating the urban heat island effect and improving thermal comfort. This study evaluated the cooling performance of 170 parks in the urban center region of Beijing using seven cooling effect indicators. An integrated framework combining XGBoost, SHAP, and Ordinary Least Squares was proposed to examine the nonlinear relationships and threshold effects between cooling effect indicators and landscape features. Moreover, the Elbow method and K-means clustering were applied to classify parks based on their cooling performance. The results showed that both internal and external landscape features are closely associated with park cooling effects. Eight features were identified as key landscape features, possessing higher relative importance. Pronounced nonlinear relationships and threshold effects were identified. For example, the optimal park area is approximately 25 hm2, while more regular shapes enhance cooling performance, with an optimal ratio of perimeter and area of about 0.05 m−1. Furthermore, four distinct park types with significantly different cooling performance were identified, reflecting different capacities for regulating urban thermal environments. These findings improved the understanding of park cooling effects and provided guidance for optimizing park design in megacity cores.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060899

Authors: Yihang Sui Jiayi Jin Ayse Ozbil Torun

Industrial heritage adaptive reuse occupies a structurally privileged position for degrowth: heritage listing already institutionalises material sufficiency as a regulatory obligation, mandating low intervention and resisting the demolish-and-replace logic of resource-intensive development. Yet this regulatory floor imposes no ceiling on how protected structures are programmed or who benefits; the same statutory instrument can produce different schemes depending entirely on governance. This paper demonstrates that gap through two contrasting UK gasholder adaptive reuse projects: King’s Cross Gasholders in London (private-led, luxury residential) and Granton Gasholder in Edinburgh (council-led community park). Applying De Castro Mazarro et al.’s multi-scalar degrowth framework across building, neighbourhood, and city scales through document analysis and site observations, we identify structural mechanisms explaining why building-scale alignment fails to propagate upward. The findings indicate three governance conditions are necessary to convert the structural degrowth potential of industrial heritage into substantive outcomes: public control over development decisions, community participation extended to strategic priorities rather than design preferences, and explicit integration of degrowth values into upstream planning frameworks. Industrial heritage adaptive reuse is not inherently a degrowth practice, but it is one of the few urban development contexts where the regulatory preconditions for degrowth alignment are already in place. Realising that potential requires governance structures that treat sufficiency and collective wellbeing as binding objectives, not rhetorical claims.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060898

Authors: Giada Zucco Sara La Cava Marco Infusino Stefano Scalercio

Agricultural intensification has led to landscape homogenization and the widespread loss of semi-natural habitats, contributing to biodiversity decline in agroecosystems. Semi-natural areas embedded within croplands may mitigate these effects by acting as reservoirs and steppingstones for species providing ecosystem services such as pollination. We assessed the role of remnants of semi-natural habitats in sustaining the diversity and abundance of nocturnal Lepidoptera within a Mediterranean vineyard landscape (southern Italy) using monthly light trap sampling over almost one year. Assemblages were compared between vineyards and adjacent semi-natural patches. Multivariate analyses revealed marked differences in community composition between semi-natural habitat types. Species richness was consistently higher in semi-natural habitats, even when represented by small residual patches. Vineyard assemblages were characterized by reduced richness and a predominance of generalist species with high dispersal ability, indicating a simplified community structure. Nevertheless, some taxa of biogeographical interest were recorded. These findings demonstrate the importance of semi-natural habitats in maintaining nocturnal Lepidoptera diversity in vineyard-dominated landscapes and support their integration into sustainable agricultural management to enhance biodiversity conservation and the provision of ecosystem services.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060895

Authors: Siwei Wang Wei He

Between 2024 and 2025, Chinese land-based emission reduction projects frequently faced quality reviews and sanctions from Verra, a leading international standards-setting body. In addition to project stagnation and the withdrawal of carbon credits, China’s reputation as a host country in international efforts to reduce carbon emissions was severely damaged. These cases stem from a deeper social phenomenon: non-state actors like Verra have acquired rule-making power, and exercising this power has substantial implications for other entities, manifesting in the carbon emissions reduction field as tensions over the interests and reputations of project proponents and related parties. With non-state actors breaking the previous monopoly on rule-making power held solely by state actors, creating a “dualistic” confrontation, coordinating the relationship between the two becomes crucial, as promoting positive interaction becomes crucial. Otherwise, the dilemma of “compliant domestically, non-compliant internationally” and “international standards being difficult to implement domestically” will arise, as seen in these cases. This study used two cases of sanctions imposed by Verra on Chinese land-related projects as starting points. Then, taking China’s independent development of a methodology for silt-retention dam carbon sink projects to mitigate international sanctions as a third case. Following a research approach of “case analysis, in-depth investigation of bottlenecks, overcoming difficulties,” this study systematically examines the shortcomings and necessary efforts of both sides by exploring the various problems arising from the clash and conflict of rules between non-state actors and state actors. To address this issue, this study constructs a nested theoretical framework comprising two two-tiered theoretical structures. This study argues that both Verra and the government of China should work together to promote the legitimacy of emission reduction project standards and their effectiveness within host countries. The solutions proposed in this study can also provide experience and a reference for developing countries in addressing the expansion of power by non-state actors and the disconnect between domestic rules.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060896

Authors: Manish Kumar Shiv Bolan Rakesh Kumar Juhi Gupta Dingjiang Chen Hao Wu Sarah Stackpoole Nitika Chandel Santanu Mukherjee Manoj Chandra Garg Srinithi Mayilswami Kadambot H. M. Siddique Nanthi Bolan

Most major crops in agricultural soils exhibit relatively low nutrient use efficiency for nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K), often necessitating supplemental nutrient inputs to achieve sustainable yields. Furthermore, the increasing use of biowastes such as compost, manure, and biosolids, which frequently have nutrient ratios that do not match crop requirements, has contributed to excessive nutrient inputs and subsequent accumulation in soils. This situation has been further exacerbated by intensive farming practices involving multiple cropping cycles per season. Overuse of nutrients causes them to accumulate in the soil, creating a legacy nutrient pool. The application of biochar as soil amendment is considered a potential strategy to control legacy nutrients dynamics. The current review inspects the possible value of biochar in modulating legacy nutrient reserves in the soil, thereby increasing the bioavailability of nutrients and improving crop yield. This review discusses the search scope and synthesis approaches for the bibliometric methodological component through rigorous screening process (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA)), focusing on journal articles published in last 20 years that specifically address legacy nutrient management. The significance of the economic and environmental effects of legacy nutrients and the insufficient knowledge of how biochar application influences nutrient dynamics in soil highlight the necessity for additional research to address current gaps.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060897

Authors: Zhenzhen He Chin-Hong Puah

This paper investigates the evolution and driving mechanisms of the Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD) between urban development (UD) and ecological efficiency (EE) in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) urban agglomeration. Using panel data for 27 cities from 2013 to 2023, a comprehensive evaluation model and the CCD model are used to measure the level of coordination across cities. A fixed-effects panel regression model is constructed to systematically examine the effects of economic development and education expenditure on CCD, focusing on the moderating role of education expenditure. The empirical results indicate that: (1) CCD in the YRD shows a clear upward trend, gradually shifting from disorder to coordinated development; (2) inter-city disparities remain evident, reflecting differences in development foundations, industrial structures, and governance capacities; (3) economic development significantly promotes CCD by providing material and institutional support for urban–ecological coordination; and (4) education expenditure strengthens this positive relationship by enhancing human capital accumulation and knowledge spillovers. The findings highlight the importance of integrating economic growth with human capital investment to promote green and high-quality urban development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15060894

Authors: Abdullah Alshami Mohamed Metwaly

The management of water resources is a critical factor in the emergence of civilizations, particularly in arid regions like the Arabian Peninsula. The ancient Marib Dam represents a systematic application of hydraulic planning within the Sabaean civilization. This study analyzes the scientific rationale behind the dam’s site selection by assessing key hydrological and geomorphological factors using Geographic Information Systems (GISs) and Weighted Overlay Analysis (WOA). The analysis revealed that the dam’s location precisely corresponds with a (very high) potential runoff accumulation zone, a critical area constituting only 0.8% of the total landscape studied. By providing this quantitative assessment, this study moves beyond historical interpretation to offer the first geospatial evidence that the dam’s site selection was deliberate and quantitatively informed, establishing a replicable model for the field of archaeohydrology.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050893

Authors: Donat Shukuru Yongchul Shin Joowon Park Bomi Kim

Rapid and reliable detection of landslides is essential for disaster response, hazard assessment, and environmental monitoring, particularly in environments where timely information is critical. Recognizing the need, this study proposes a unified framework that integrates pixel-based LULC classification with landslide detection using multispectral satellite imagery. In this framework, landslides are identified as vegetation-to-bare land transitions constrained by temporal, terrain, and morphological conditions, making detection dependent on accurate classification of vegetation and bare land. An optimal classifier configuration was selected through a statistical scheme based on three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to ensure reliable classification and applied to pre- and post-event imagery to derive landslide candidate areas. To improve detection reliability, terrain and morphological filters were applied, including a slope constraint selected through sensitivity analysis and a length-to-width (L/W) ratio to reduce false detections. The classification accuracies achieved across the two study sites ranged from 0.85 to 0.89, supporting the detection of approximately 70% of the total landslide area, with precision up to 0.93 and F1-scores of 0.77–0.79. Lower slope thresholds improved detection completeness, while higher thresholds increased omission errors. These findings suggest that the proposed integration of optimized LULC classification and constrained change detection may provide a practical and potentially transferable framework for improving landslide detection performance under varying environmental conditions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050892

Authors: Xiaolong Zhou Meng He Xin Tong Tingxi Liu Limin Duan Xiaoyan Liu Jiaxin Li Jianxun Ji Guangyan Zhu Vijay P. Singh

The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is widely used to track vegetation cover and ecological change. However, in arid watersheds where irrigated farmland and natural vegetation coexist, it remains unclear how irrigation changes the relative effects of climate, terrain, and soil on vegetation growth. Using the Hetao irrigation district watershed in Inner Mongolia, this study analyzed NDVI dynamics and their environmental controls from 2001 to 2024 through trend analysis, spatial autocorrelation, XGBoost-SHAP, GeoDetector, and geographically weighted regression. NDVI increased significantly across the watershed at 0.0035 yr−1, but the increase was much stronger inside the irrigation district (mean NDVI = 0.58; slope = 0.0061 yr−1) than outside it (mean NDVI = 0.26; slope = 0.0015 yr−1). Global Moran’s I values remained above 0.86, showing persistent spatial clustering. The main drivers also differed by zone. DEM, SOC, and precipitation were most important for the whole watershed; SOC, TP, pH, and TN were more important inside the irrigation district; and precipitation and DEM were more important outside it. GeoDetector confirmed that paired drivers strengthened each other, including SOC ∩ DEM at the watershed scale and DEM ∩ TP outside the irrigation district. GWR further showed that rainfall effects were stronger outside the irrigation boundary, while soil-related effects were stronger in the irrigated agricultural belt. These results show that irrigation not only increases NDVI but also changes how vegetation responds to environmental conditions by weakening direct rainfall limitation and strengthening soil-related controls in managed landscapes. The findings provide evidence for zone-specific vegetation restoration and land-water management in dryland irrigation watersheds.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050891

Authors: Fanxin Geng Shicheng Li Yu Qiu Haiyan Huang Meijiao Li

Reconstructing historical land use intensity and analyzing its driving forces are crucial for understanding the impacts of human activities on the environment. This review systematically assesses the research on reconstructing historical land use intensity in China, focusing on four dimensions: land use type, harvest frequency, input intensity, and output intensity. The analysis reveals significant imbalances in the development of these dimensions, with reconstruction methods for land use types being the most mature, while quantitative methods for input intensity remain the weakest. The approaches are generally evolving from qualitative to quantitative analysis. Furthermore, studies on the driving forces behind intensity changes are predominantly qualitative, lacking integrated quantitative analyses of multiple factors. To overcome these limitations, the paper proposes that future research should integrate multi-source proxy indicators to construct a comprehensive, multi-dimensional assessment system. This would enable the spatiotemporal reconstruction of land use intensity and facilitate quantitative analysis of its driving forces using spatial data analysis and machine learning methods.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050890

Authors: José M. García del Barrio Carlos Guadaño-Peyrot Delphine Grivet Sanna Olsson Diana Barba Francisco Auñon Eulogio Chacón-Moreno Marta Fernández-Pastor Emma Gaitán Rubén G. Mateo Alba García-Pose Ana Hernández-Parada Jennifer Morales-Barbero César Paradinas-Blázquez Carlos Prado-López José María Rey-Benayas Jaime Ribalaygua Gonzalo Rodríguez-Ruiz Dominic Royé María del Carré Ricardo Alía

Conserving the genetic resources of major forest species is essential for mitigating climate risks associated with global change. Species distribution models and their projections under future emission scenarios are key tools for assessing climate-related threats to populations targeted for conservation efforts. In this study, we analyzed the populations included in the Spanish Network of Forest Genetic Conservation Units, comprising 297 units across twenty main forest tree species in Spain. We used species distribution models with high-resolution environmental data to assess habitat suitability across different climate scenarios and time periods. We introduced a Climatic Vulnerability Index to identify Genetic Conservation Units at risk of maladaptation by evaluating shifts in current conditions. Our results reveal spatial and interspecific heterogeneity in the future climatic vulnerability of the conservation network, as well as a relationship between expert-defined marginality and current climatic unsuitability under the Spanish Group model. Overall, our findings provide a basis for prioritizing conservation actions, guiding adaptive forest management, and supporting the long-term monitoring and viability of forest genetic resources under accelerating climate change.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050889

Authors: Yuguan Zhang Siyi Qin Yang Xiao

Existing flood risk models have improved predictive accuracy, but they prioritize natural and hydrological factors while giving limited attention to fine-grained urban morphology. This study develops an interpretable deep learning framework to examine how high-resolution, three-dimensional urban form shapes two dimensions of flood risk: inundation risk, measured by grid-level inundated area, and infrastructure risk, measured by flood-related disruptions, including water supply interruption, power outage, road blockage, and collapse-related damage. Using Zhengzhou, China, as a case study, we combine multi-source spatial data, convolutional neural networks, ablation analysis, SHAP interpretation, and Gaussian Mixture Model classification to examine how fine-grained urban morphology affects these two risk dimensions. Incorporating urban morphology improved inundation risk prediction, reducing MSE from 0.0431 to 0.0371. The improvement was greater for infrastructure risk, with accuracy increasing from 0.7327 to 0.8218, and ROC-AUC from 0.83 to 0.95. SHAP results show that inundation risk is associated with vegetation, elevation, hydrological proximity, and localized spatial disorder, whereas infrastructure risk is amplified by vertical intensity, imperviousness, building concentration, porosity, and shape. Spatially, very high infrastructure-risk areas accounted for only 2.30% of the city but 12.88% of the central districts, while 74.62% of very high infrastructure-risk zones were concentrated in dense mid- to high-rise morphology. These findings suggest that flood-resilient planning should move beyond hydrology-sensitive flood management toward morphology-sensitive planning.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050888

Authors: Mingjian Zhu Xinyi Dong Jiali Shi

It is crucial to evaluate the spatio-temporal dynamics of habitat quality, which is highly sensitive to land use change. Sea-level rise and rapid urbanization are major driving forces of this change, yet their coupled impacts on future habitat quality remain poorly quantified, particularly in highly urbanized coastal regions such as the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). This study develops an integrated framework combining the Dyna-CLUE (Dynamic Conversion of Land Use and its Effects) model and SLAMM (Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model), incorporating local sea-level rise data and climate projections under the SSP3–7.0 scenario to simulate land use transitions and their impacts on coastal land use patterns and habitat quality across short-, medium-, and long-term periods. The results indicate that (1) by the end of the 21st century, accelerated urban expansion is projected to dominate land use change, with associated declines in habitat quality; (2) sea-level rise exerts heterogeneous effects on coastal wetlands, with wetland area increasing by 3232 ha between 2020 and 2050, followed by a decrease of 4110 ha by 2100, potentially contributing to habitat degradation; and (3) between 2020 and 2100, the proportion of lower-grade habitats will increase from 14.59% to 27.60%, whereas higher-grade habitats will decline from 5.49% to 4.47%. These findings highlight the need to regulate urban expansion, accommodate coastal wetland migration, and prioritize the conservation of high-quality habitats. The proposed framework provides a context-specific analytical approach for scenario-based assessment of land use management under combined urbanization and climate change pressures.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050887

Authors: José Manuel Sánchez-Martín

This study analyzes domestic tourism mobility in Spain using aggregated and anonymized mobile phone data, with a particular focus on the outbound market of the municipality of Madrid and its territorial redistribution between September 2019 and September 2025. Using experimental statistics from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), a monthly series of origin–destination flows to all Spanish municipalities was constructed, harmonizing the municipal database and incorporating intensive indicators to improve inter-territorial comparability. The spatiotemporal dynamics were integrated into a Space–Time Cube (monthly resolution), and Emerging Hot Spot Analysis (EHSA) was applied to classify the persistence, intensification, or attenuation of high- and low-intensity clusters. Additionally, the grouping of time series allowed for the identification of seasonal patterns associated with coastal, urban, and nearby inland destinations. The results show: (i) a synchronous disruption in the spring of 2020 linked to COVID-19; (ii) a staggered recovery beginning in 2021, consolidating in 2023–2025; and (iii) a dual structural pattern, with a strong concentration of volumes in large urban and coastal hubs, along with high relative intensities in small municipalities in the ring surrounding Madrid. EHSA identifies intensifying hotspots in established coastal systems (Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca) and cooling or attenuated dynamics in parts of the inland region, consistent with the reconfiguration of the “tourism radius” following the pandemic. Limitations arising from statistical confidentiality and the representativeness of the source are discussed, and future research directions are proposed based on the integration of the information with expenditure and transportation data and on spatiotemporal modeling to support destination planning and management.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050886

Authors: Yi Lu Kebei Liu Rui Li

Under the global sustainable development agenda, urban ecological resilience serves as a key indicator of park city. This study established a framework of “Retrospective Evaluation–Prospective Simulation–Zoning Control”. The study chose Chengdu and analyzed land-use changes occurring at three-year intervals from 1999 to 2023. A defense–adaptability–recovery framework was applied to assess urban ecological resilience (UER). The study further simulated land use and urban ecological resilience patterns for 2035 under three scenarios, including natural development, ecological conservation, and park city development scenarios. Finally, it coupled UER with land development intensity to delineate ecological zones and propose differentiated strategies. The results showed that (1) historical UER declined then rose, with low UER concentrated in built-up areas and relatively low UER accounting for the largest share. (2) The park city development scenario yielded the highest UER, but showed limited improvement in existing low-resilience built-up areas. (3) Zoning patterns across scenarios were highly similar, dominated by Potential Development Zones. This study identifies the optimal scenario for enhancing UER and offers zoning strategies that can inform park city development in other cities.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050885

Authors: Shuqi Zhu Yueqin Shen Zhen Zhu

The land transfer system is widely regarded as a key institutional arrangement for advancing agricultural modernization and rural transformation. Drawing on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) and from the perspective of farmer differentiation, this study investigates the effects of land transfer on rural household livelihood resilience using China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data from 2012 to 2020. The results indicate the following: (1) Land transfer significantly improves rural household livelihood resilience overall, but this effect is mainly driven by land transfer-out. (2) Land transfer exhibits a clear threshold effect on livelihood resilience. Land transfer-out has a negative impact at low levels of off-farm employment but turns positive after the threshold is crossed, with increasing effects at higher levels of non-farm engagement. Land transfer-in has a significant positive effect on livelihood resilience only above a certain asset. (3) Farmer differentiation is a critical mechanism. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that differences in livelihood strategies and initial geographical conditions affect households’ reliance on land and agricultural productivity, thereby altering the impact of land transfer on livelihood resilience. These findings demonstrate that policies should adopt differentiated interventions rather than a one-size-fits-all approach in order to better align land transfer with the livelihood strategies of rural households.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050884

Authors: Kaiping Li Yuan Li Wenxian Wu Leping Yang

Accurate prediction of soil organic carbon (SOC) in cropland is important for food production, sustainable soil management, and carbon sequestration. Although digital soil mapping (DSM) has been widely used in the prediction of SOC, most of the current DSM studies use only a single remote sensing image and a single machine learning (ML) approach, and few studies apply multi-temporal remote sensing images and ensemble methods. This study explores the accuracy of the prediction of surface SOC in cropland by comparing multi-temporal Sentinel-2A remote sensing with random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), gradient boosted decision trees (GBDT), extreme gradient boosted decision trees (XGBoost), and a stacking ensemble method consisting of these four ML approaches. The potential of multi-temporal remote sensing data and the stacking ensemble method for SOC prediction is discussed. To this end, 76 sampling points were selected in the study area, soil samples were collected at depths of 0–10 cm and 10–20 cm for each soil profile, and a total of 152 soil samples were obtained. Remote sensing variables extracted from topography, climate, and Sentinel-2A images on 13 January and 31 August 2023 were used as predictor variables. The results showed that the stacking ensemble method with multi-temporal predictor variables outperformed all single models and variable combinations. However, the overall predictive accuracy remained moderate, with the best performance for 0–10 cm (R2 = 0.386, RMSE = 4.782, MAE = 3.36) and 10–20 cm (R2 = 0.425, RMSE = 4.484, MAE = 4.031). The relatively low R2 values, despite the use of advanced methods, highlight the inherent challenges of SOC prediction in highly fragmented karst croplands. This study demonstrates the incremental benefit, rather than a universal high accuracy, of combining multi-temporal Sentinel-2 imagery with a stacking ensemble to improve SOC mapping in such complex environments.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050883

Authors: Eileen Johnson John A. Moretti

Murrah Cave is one of a series of cave and rockshelters in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands (far eastern Trans-Pecos) that contain evidence of late Quaternary cultures, fauna, and flora. Excavated in 1937, many faunal and floral specimens from Murrah Cave remain undescribed. Among those materials are a coracoid of a Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps), seeds, and charcoal. The major cultural occupation now is dated between 1000 and 600 14C yr B.P. based on textiles. Charcoal dates, however, cluster earlier at around 2500 14C yr B.P. with one date at 4800 14C yr B.P. The Pied-billed Grebe represents the first occurrence in the Quaternary fossil record for the Trans-Pecos. The floral taxa are found in the Trans-Pecos Canyonlands today, part of the Chihuahuan Desert vegetation community, with some being the first known presence in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. Two short-term mesic periods begin around 2500 14C yr B.P. and 700 14C yr B.P. denoted by the return of modern bison and expansion of the grasslands. These brief periods of increased moisture do not fundamentally alter the desert vegetation community. The floral and avian records highlight the potential available data within and the usefulness of old collections in contributing to modern studies.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050882

Authors: Dinglin Liu Pingping Guo Yufeng Lin Hongkun Cai Kaiyuan Zhao Mao Wang Wenqing Wang

In Luoyuan Bay, China, Sporobolus alterniflorus invasion has hindered mangrove restoration and disrupted faunal communities within mangrove habitats. This study investigated its impact on mollusk, crab, and fish assemblages across mangrove, mudflat, and invaded habitats from 2019 to 2020. Results showed that species diversity of three assemblages did not differ significantly between invaded and non-invaded mangrove habitats; however, assemblage structure was altered and functional traits declined markedly in invaded areas. Compared with non-invaded mangroves, invaded habitats showed decreases of 81.6% in mollusk density, 50.7% in mollusk biomass, 66.6% in crab density and 84.2% in crab biomass. Dominant fish species (Acanthogobius ommaturus, Liza carinata, Stolephorus chinensis) also exhibited lower body size, total size and biomass in invaded habitats. Given the close dependence of coastal residents on these faunal resources, a socioeconomic analysis of livelihood strategies was conducted, revealing Sinonovacula constricta aquaculture achieved the highest net income-to-investment ratio, 122.7% higher than nearshore fishery and 308.3% higher than shallow-sea oyster cultivation, while professional shellfish farming yielded the highest net income per hectare, 23.6% higher than oyster cultivation. Thus, both forms of shellfish aquaculture provide greater economic returns than other livelihood options. Based on these findings and niche theory, we propose a management framework: after removing S. alterniflorus, plant native mangroves (Kandelia obovata) in mid-to-high intertidal zones and lease lower flats for shellfish farming. This framework has the potential to integrate ecological restoration with local livelihoods and may inform similar efforts in other regions facing biological invasions and restoration challenges.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050881

Authors: Fatih Adiguzel Enes Karadeniz Tuna Emir Ferhat Arslan Halil Baris Ozel

Land-use planning in ecologically sensitive landscapes requires balancing biodiversity conservation, ecosystem service provision, agricultural production, settlement expansion, and infrastructure demand within a single spatial system. This challenge is particularly significant in Mediterranean environments, where long-term land transformations and increasing development pressures intensify conflicts among competing land-use priorities. Accordingly, the present study develops an integrated spatial zoning and decision-support framework for Osmaniye Province, southern Türkiye. The framework integrates fuzzy multi-criteria evaluation, CatBoost-based machine learning, SHAP-based interpretability, and NSGA-II multi-objective optimization. The workflow followed a sequential decision process in which an expert-derived zoning surface was first established through fuzzy evaluation, reconstructed from continuous spatial predictors using CatBoost, interpreted through SHAP, and refined through NSGA-II under explicit spatial constraints. By using the expert-derived zoning surface as the learning target, the CatBoost stage aimed to evaluate the internal consistency and spatial learnability of the planning logic within a present-day zoning context. The results indicated that the integrated framework distinguished conservation, controlled-use, and development priorities while identifying the key environmental and anthropogenic drivers shaping class-specific zoning outcomes. The final zoning structure allocated 37.9% of the study area to conservation, 43.6% to controlled use, and 18.5% to development. The study shows that by including a transitional zone with varying proportions of conservation, controlled use, and development, a more balanced distribution among the three goals can be achieved compared to a fixed partition into these three zones. The findings further demonstrate that this approach is more effective than current zoning, which does not accommodate such trade-offs.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050880

Authors: Stella Schroeder Ricardo Pozo Keily Medina

Urban informality is a defining feature of Latin American urbanisation, with estimates suggesting that up to 80% of the urban landscape has been informally built. Despite its centrality in urban development, its integration into architectural education remains limited, revealing a gap between the realities of city-making and the professional training offered by universities. This study examines how architecture programmes in Chile, Peru, and Ecuador address urban informality and the extent to which they prepare future professionals to engage with the dominant modes of urban production in the region. Using a qualitative and comparative methodology, the curricula, course descriptions, and academic lines of 50 universities were analysed across three dimensions: (1) the thematic presence of concepts related to informality, (2) the degree of curricular integration—core, transversal, or tangential—and (3) pedagogical orientation, classified as technical–normative, social–critical, or interdisciplinary. The results reveal a fragmented and uneven incorporation of urban informality. Chile shows the highest relative presence, though often embedded indirectly within broader themes such as inequality or sustainability and framed through technical–normative approaches. Peru and Ecuador display even more limited integration, generally confined to isolated courses or electives. The study argues that this marginal incorporation weakens the preparation of professionals working in contexts where informality is a structural urban condition and calls for an “informal turn” in built-environment education.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050879

Authors: Eryan Guo Tingting Gao Ke Zhou Jisheng Hao Keru Ge Xitian Yang Xin Huang

Forest tourism represents an important pathway for promoting green consumption, with forest parks serving as the primary platform for its development. The coordinated development of forest parks is therefore essential for achieving integrated economic, social, and ecological benefits. Investigating the coordination and coupling between ecological resilience and tourism economy in forest parks of the Yellow River Basin along with driving factors carried substantial practical significance for balancing regional economic development with ecological conservation. The present research developed an indicator system that was comprehensive and dynamic for assessing ecological resilience across forest parks in nine provinces of the Yellow River Basin during 2013–2023. To investigate patterns of spatiotemporal evolution and uncover underlying driving mechanisms, exploratory spatial data analysis was combined with a spatiotemporal geographically weighted regression model. The main findings are as follows: (1) The integrated levels of ecological resilience and tourism economy across the Yellow River Basin showed significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity. From north to south, a high–low–high spatial pattern was exhibited by ecological resilience, while a core concentration and gradient diffusion pattern was demonstrated by the tourism economy. (2) The coupling coordination level between forest park ecosystems and the tourism economy increased, with a growing number of provinces transitioning toward coordinated and near–dysregulated states, although pronounced regional disparities persisted. (3) Kernel density analysis indicated an overall improvement in coordination, accompanied by strong regional differentiation. The upper reaches displayed a unipolar leading pattern, while the middle and lower reaches showed multipolar differentiation and a pronounced “Matthew effect”. (4) Technological innovation emerged as the core driving factor, though its influence varied considerably across regions. Overall, these findings provide theoretical support and empirical evidence for policy formulation aimed at achieving a balance between ecological conservation and economic development in forest park systems.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050878

Authors: Ying Wang Zhuojuan Yuan Zongyao Sun Hao Wang

In multi-ethnic villages, public space serves as more than just a venue for social interaction; it is the vital ground where cultural integration and community identity take root. This study examines Cizhong Village in the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan, employing a mixed-methods approach that combines questionnaire surveys (N = 120), semi-structured interviews (N = 32), and Social Network Analysis (SNA) to compare the village’s planned spatial network with residents’ actual movement patterns. Findings reveal a significant structural mismatch: while the planned network exhibits higher density (0.32) and clustering (0.70), the behavioral network demonstrates a stronger small-world index (2.14 vs. 1.94), indicating that villagers organically form compact activity clusters around key social hubs such as the church and supermarket. QAP correlation analysis further shows that Tibetan and Naxi behavioral networks are highly similar (r = 0.833, p < 0.001), whereas Han networks exhibit weaker correlations (r = 0.527–0.607, p < 0.05), revealing a spatial pattern of “broad integration with localized ethnic preferences”. Grounded theory coding of interview data (55 initial concepts, 14 categories, 4 core categories) validates these structural findings and identifies the core theme of “superposed space of multi-ethnic dynamic sharing”. Based on these results, three optimization strategies are proposed: improving connectivity between public spaces, revitalizing key social hubs, and respecting established ethnic spatial traditions. These insights provide an evidence-based framework for managing public spaces in multi-ethnic rural communities.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050877

Authors: Eduardo Gomes Patrícia Abrantes Eduarda Marques da Costa

This Editorial introduces the Special Issue “Spatial Planning and Land-Use Management: 2nd Edition” and discusses the eight articles published in it. Taken together, these contributions demonstrate that contemporary spatial planning and land-use management can no longer be understood as narrowly regulatory or sector-specific activities. Rather, they must be approached as integrative and adaptive practices capable of mediating between ecological integrity, territorial cohesion, infrastructure provision, social justice, public health, and participatory governance. The Special Issue brings together case studies from China, the United States, Australia, Iran, Portugal, Slovakia, and Belgium, as well as comparative evidence from peri-urban landscapes, and spans a wide range of spatial scales, from neighbourhoods and urban forests to metropolitan green belts, urban agglomerations, peri-urban territories, and ecoregions. Several major lines of inquiry emerge across the volume. First, the articles reaffirm the need for multiscale planning frameworks able to connect local action with regional and supra-regional structures. Second, they broaden the understanding of infrastructure by including not only transport and urban facilities, but also ecological, green, and even nocturnal infrastructures. Third, they show that many of today’s most difficult planning questions arise in spaces of transition and overlap, especially peri-urban areas, where conflicts among land uses, ecosystem services, development pressures, and governance arrangements become particularly acute across sectors and across spatial and temporal scales. Fourth, they underline that planning effectiveness increasingly depends on participation, co-design, and cooperation among diverse actors, including civic initiatives and local communities. Overall, the Special Issue highlights spatial planning as a strategic field of action through which societies can address land-use conflicts, reconcile environmental and social objectives, and design more sustainable, resilient, and liveable territories.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050876

Authors: Yiming Su Guoxin Chen Yiming Li Haiyue Peng Qiong Li

The Source Region of the Yellow River (YRSR) is a key ecological barrier and a major water supply area, where water conservation is highly sensitive to ongoing climate change (CC) and land use/cover change (LUCC). However, the relative roles of CC and LUCC in regulating water conservation remain insufficiently quantified. In this study, we applied the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate the spatiotemporal dynamics of water conservation in the YRSR and to disentangle the respective contributions of CC and LUCC using a fixing–changing approach, in which one driver is fixed and the other is varied across paired scenarios, followed by projections driven by CMIP6 forcing under SSP2–4.5 and SSP5–8.5. Water conservation showed a pronounced southeast–northwest contrast and increased over 2000–2019 (+4.56 mm/year). Attribution analysis revealed that CC dominated changes in water conservation, whereas LUCC exerted a weak net negative influence. Most increasing regions were precipitation-driven, whereas declining regions were concentrated where evapotranspiration and surface runoff increased concurrently. Under SSP2–4.5, water conservation is projected to continue increasing (+1.16 mm/year). In contrast, under SSP5–8.5, water conservation is projected to slightly decline (−0.26 mm/year). These findings highlight the primary role of climate in regulating water conservation in the YRSR and provide scientific support for adaptive watershed management under a changing climate.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050875

Authors: Xiaoling Yuan Shuiting Liu Zhaopeng Li Hao Jiang

Based on the characteristics of cities as organic entities, this paper constructs a five-dimensional evaluation framework encompassing economy, industry, society, population, and space. A three-stage process of “fuzzy comprehensive evaluation—bi-level K-means clustering—state stability correction” is adopted to identify the development stages and spatiotemporal evolution of 286 Chinese cities from 2008 to 2023. The study finds that China’s urban development has shifted from “universal growth” to “divergent evolution,” exhibiting multiple characteristics such as the decline in the initial-stage cities and differentiation in the growth stage. Significant regional spatial differentiation is observed, with notable development gaps among the eastern, central, western, and northeastern regions, as well as between the northern and southern regions. Furthermore, most urban agglomerations exhibit a “mature center–lagging periphery” structure.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050874

Authors: Mina Ramezani Celestina Fazia Clara Stella Vicari Aversa Dorina Camelia Ilieș

Most developed countries welcome the redevelopment of brownfield sites and consider it an effective tool for urban policy. However, its adoption can be challenging initially, particularly in developing countries where these challenges are significantly greater. This research aims to answer the question, “How are research methodologies applied in the field of brownfield redevelopment studies?” Following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, relevant studies were identified through searches in Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and Semantic Scholar. This study utilizes a meta-methodological approach to analyze and compare the methodological characteristics of brownfield redevelopment studies. After applying the predefined eligibility criteria, which included English-language peer-reviewed articles between 2018 and 2023 and articles that are directly relevant to brownfield redevelopment, 20 articles were selected for detailed examination. Based on the thematic classification of the research, the studies can be categorized into four groups: brownfield redevelopment and community participation, brownfield redevelopment and urban planning, brownfield redevelopment and environmental sustainability, and brownfield redevelopment and technology. The majority of the research relates to brownfield redevelopment and environmental sustainability. This review suggests that research in brownfield redevelopment has been dominated by quantitative research, and there is a need for more comparative, theoretically oriented, and methodologically integrated research.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050873

Authors: Gita Bhushal Pankaj Lal

Nepal has undergone significant land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes from 2000 to 2020, driven by urbanization, agricultural shifts, and broader socioeconomic dynamics. This study analyzes historical changes and projects LULC dynamics for 2030, 2040, and 2050 across four scenarios: Business-as-Usual (BAU), Rapid Urban Development (RUD), Forest Degradation and Terai Contraction (FDTC), and Agricultural Land Abandonment and Ecological Recovery (ALER). A CA–Markov modeling framework in TerrSet was used to simulate future land-use patterns, utilizing scenario-specific transition probability matrices and spatial constraints to reflect different socio-economic and policy assumptions. Under the BAU scenario, land-use change remains moderate, characterized by gradual urban expansion and limited forest decline. On the contrary, the RUD scenario predicts a drastic expansion of built-up areas by about 1.44 million ha, along with significant losses of cropland, bare soil, grassland, and forest, reflecting intensified development pressure. The FDTC scenario emphasizes agricultural expansion at the expense of forests, while urban growth remains limited. Conversely, the ALER scenario demonstrates strong ecological recovery driven by cropland abandonment and secondary vegetation regeneration, resulting in notable expansion of forest and other woody land. Overall, these four scenarios reveal sharply divergent land-use trajectories, ranging from rapid urban transformation to ecosystem restoration. These contrasting land-use pathways highlight the critical importance of integrated land-use policies that can proactively manage urban expansion, safeguard high-value agricultural and forest landscapes, and promote ecological restoration through incentives for agricultural land abandonment and secondary vegetation recovery, thereby ensuring long-term sustainability and climate resilience in Nepal.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050871

Authors: Guoqiang Zheng Biao Wang Yaohui Liu Zhenyuan Gao Xiaoyu Chen

The Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) are key economic growth poles in China, playing a critical role in driving national economic development and facilitating international exchanges in commerce, culture, and ecology. However, rapid urbanization and industrialization have exerted considerable pressure on regional environments. In this study, we first assessed the dynamics of carbon storage (CS) and habitat quality (HQ) in the GBA and the YRD from 2000 to 2020 using the InVEST model and ArcGIS software, systematically analyzing their spatiotemporal changes and underlying driving mechanisms. Subsequently, we employed the PLUS model to predict land use changes by 2030 and evaluate their potential impacts on CS and HQ. The results indicate that: (1) Both regions have experienced increases in construction land and declines in cropland. (2) Between 2000 and 2020, CS in the GBA decreased by 33.65 × 106 t and HQ declined by 0.0833, whereas in the YRD, CS decreased by 15.35 × 106 t and HQ dropped by 0.0504. (3) By 2030, CS in the GBA is projected to decline further by 4.08%, with HQ decreasing to 0.4777, while in the YRD, CS is expected to fall by 2.71% and HQ decrease to 0.4115. (4) The spatial differentiation of CS and HQ in the GBA is primarily driven by anthropogenic processes, whereas in the YRD it is mainly constrained by natural factors such as topography. This study highlights the importance of understanding the spatiotemporal dynamics of CS and HQ, which can help enhance ecosystem service functions, mitigate the impacts of climate change, and provide a scientific basis for regional sustainable development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050872

Authors: Yuhan Zhao Chun Dong Yan Yang

The Huang–Huai–Hai Plain supports one of China’s most important grain production systems, but crop production there is persistently constrained by limited water availability and recurrent drought. Common regional drought indicators are useful for monitoring dry conditions, yet they do not explicitly represent crop water demand and irrigation input, which reduces their suitability for agricultural risk assessment. In this study, a crop-oriented framework was developed for winter wheat and summer maize by linking crop water requirement, effective rainfall, irrigation supply, drought-event detection, and productivity-risk estimation. A standardized crop water deficit index (SCWDI) was developed from crop water balance and integrated with run theory, monthly correlation analysis, and a Copula–Bayesian framework to detect drought events, identify crop-sensitive periods, and quantify the probability and triggering threshold of gross primary productivity (GPP) loss. During 2001–2022, the Huang–Huai–Hai Plain experienced an average of 1.15 drought events per year, with pronounced spatial differences. The main sensitive period was June for summer maize and March–April for winter wheat. Summer maize showed a stronger drought response, with a mean triggering threshold of −1.54, whereas winter wheat required more severe stress to trigger concentrated productivity loss (−2.54). Under extreme drought, the probability of summer-maize GPP loss exceeded 80% in both the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region and Henan. These results provide a basis for growth-stage-oriented irrigation prioritization and spatially differentiated drought management under agricultural water scarcity.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050870

Authors: Jiuyao Wen Yuheng Li Yun Zhang Zijing Wu

Comprehensive land consolidation (CLC) is a systematic initiative aimed at optimizing spatial patterns of land use and revitalizing idle rural land resources. It is a pivotal policy instrument for enhancing rural resilience and possesses significant practical implications. Grounded in resilience theory, this study establishes an evaluation system for rural resilience, assesses resilience levels in Huzhou from 2003 to 2023, and investigates its spatiotemporal characteristics employing the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method and geodetector model. Furthermore, this research identifies the driving factors and dynamic mechanisms through which comprehensive land consolidation impacts rural resilience. The study area is categorized into four zones based on land use types to elucidate regional heterogeneity. The findings indicate that comprehensive land consolidation markedly enhances rural resilience, which progresses from slow initial growth to accelerated improvement, ultimately culminating in leapfrog development. Spatially, rural resilience exhibits a “central-high, marginal-low” distribution, characterized by core-periphery agglomeration. Notably, the key driving factors vary significantly across different regions. Mechanistically, comprehensive land consolidation bolsters rural resilience through a sequential pathway that begins with consolidation intervention, which activates critical factors. This activation leads to structural reorganization within the rural framework, followed by the optimization of functions that enhance overall resilience. In terms of policy implications, it is essential to adopt differentiated consolidation strategies tailored to regional resource endowments, emphasizing the optimization of production-living-ecological spaces to foster integrated and sustainable rural development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050869

Authors: Yuan Wang Danyang Xu Tiebo Wang Maoan Yan Chengxie Jin

As a form of living heritage, Historic Urban Landscapes (HULs) have long been limited by the static perspectives and reductionist tendencies of conventional conservation and research approaches. Although the geological and archaeological concept of “stratification” offers a methodological basis for understanding the diachronic evolution of heritage, its unidimensional temporal lens fails to capture the inherent complexity and systemic nature of historic urban landscapes. To address this gap, this study proposes a “multidimensional stratification” theoretical framework through theoretical critique and paradigm reconstruction. The framework introduces innovations at the ontological, epistemological, and methodological levels, positing that the evolution of historic urban landscapes emerges from the nonlinear interaction and dynamic interweaving of four core dimensions: time, space, society, and value. It further systematizes five intrinsic attributes of such landscapes: authenticity, integrity, continuity, adaptability, and dynamism. Building on this foundation, the paper constructs a systematic analytical pathway—elements–processes–patterns–modes–drivers–characteristics—that enables dynamic analysis from micro-level identification to macro-level generalization, offering a scalable tool for HUL conservation and regeneration. To demonstrate the framework’s applicability, the historic urban area of Shenyang—a nationally designated historical and cultural city—is selected as a case study. Its urban landscape comprises four core districts: the Shengjing City District, the South Manchuria Railway Concession District, the Commercial Port District, and the Tiexi Industrial District, representing historical strata from the Qing dynasty capital, modern colonial planning, commercial opening, to industrial heritage. Using the multidimensional stratification approach, this study elucidates the spatial complexity, temporal nonlinearity, social dynamism, and value pluralism embedded in Shenyang’s historic urban area. Corresponding conservation strategies grounded in holism, dynamism, and differentiation are proposed. The research not only advances the theoretical understanding of HUL but also provides a novel paradigm—integrating holistic, dynamic, and operational perspectives—for the conservation, renewal, and regenerative practice of historic urban landscapes worldwide.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050868

Authors: Donghui Shi

In the context of accelerating technological and industrial transformation, innovation-driven productivity has garnered significant attention. Based on multi-source data, this study employs the entropy method and spatial pattern analysis to delve into the spatial pattern of innovation-driven productivity. The results are as follows: (1) there is a huge difference in innovation-driven productivity at the street and township level in Shanghai; (2) innovation-driven productivity exhibits global spatial autocorrelation in Shanghai; (3) innovation-driven productivity shows a circle structure with high–high agglomeration at the center and low–low agglomeration at the periphery; (4) innovation-driven productivity hot spots are concentrated in the central region, while cold spots are distributed in a southeast–northwest trend around them. This study is of great significance for Shanghai to achieve an accurate allocation of resources, a coordinated development of industries, and an improvement of urban functions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050867

Authors: Francis Pavloudakis Christos Roumpos Evangelos Karlopoulos Chrisoula Pagouni

Drawing on an extensive literature review, this paper identifies key dimensions of social impact and land management in surface mining areas, including settlement relocation, long-term land occupation, limited economic diversification, demographic decline, and stakeholder distrust. These findings are then critically applied to the Ptolemais lignite basin, where six decades of large-scale surface mining reshaped land use patterns, displaced settlements, and structured a highly specialized regional economy. The research combines qualitative literature analysis with a case study approach, supported by socioeconomic and demographic indicators. Results show that (i) lignite exploitation generated employment, infrastructure, and regional income multipliers but also structural vulnerabilities and other impacts, (ii) land occupation and settlement relocation as an impact of mine expansion created long-term spatial constraints, and (iii) the energy transition phase intensified demographic, unemployment, and governance challenges. The paper argues that effective post-lignite restructuring is related to systematic reclamation strategies, integrated land-use planning, optimal exploitation of reclaimed land, diversification beyond energy production, and participatory governance frameworks. By linking international theoretical insights with empirical evidence from Western Macedonia, the study contributes to the debate on socially just and spatially balanced transitions in former coal and lignite regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050866

Authors: Jianbao Huang Tianyu Zeng Zhuxia Wei Qun Meng Zhiyuan Chen Yuandong Zou Lianyun Feng Yanfeng Lu Yijie Li Chengfeng He Bohan Zeng Jiayu Tao Jiajia Huang Jingyang Guo

This study examines the spatiotemporal evolution and driving mechanisms of urban expansion in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China, from 2013 to 2023. Using Suomi-NPP VIIRS nighttime light (NTL) data, we combine Standard Deviational Ellipse (SDE) analysis, centroid migration, kernel density estimation (KDE), landscape metrics, Local Moran’s I (LISA), and system Generalised Method of Moments (system-GMM) estimation. The results show that the centroid of urban development remained within Binyang County while moving overall toward the southeast with recurrent north–south oscillations. The SDE results indicate a stable northeast–southwest orientation, with secondary expansion in other directions. The urban structure is dominated by a strong Nanning core, accompanied by secondary clusters in Liuzhou, Guilin, and other prefecture-level cities. Nanning recorded the largest absolute expansion, followed by secondary centres, including Liuzhou, Guilin, Yulin, Wuzhou, Fangchenggang, Qinzhou, and Beihai, whereas western and northern Guangxi expanded more slowly. The system-GMM results indicate that financial deepening has a marginally significant positive effect on built-up area expansion and fiscal pressure has a marginally significant constraining effect, both at the 10% level; land finance dependency does not emerge as an independent driver in this small panel. We interpret these findings through a Source–Channel–Valve framework, in which financial deepening provides the capital source, land finance represents a hypothesised institutional channel, and fiscal pressure acts as a regulatory constraint. The study provides empirical evidence for sustainable and regionally coordinated urban development in Guangxi and comparable geographically constrained regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050865

Authors: Sebastian Florczyk Iwona Jażdżewska Elzbieta Bielecka Anna Markowska

Understanding the spatial organisation of small towns is essential for sustainable spatial planning and regional development. This study examines the spatio-functional pattern of Brzeziny, a small town located within the Łódź Metropolitan Area in Central Poland, selected as a representative case due to its typical Central European small-town morphology shaped by historical continuity, demographic stagnation, and metropolitan influence. The analysis is based on updated cadastral land-use data verified through field surveys and supplemented with topographic datasets (BDOT10k and OpenStreetMap). A modified land-use classification comprising nine categories is applied, and spatial analysis is performed using a regular grid and GIS tools. Dominant land-use structures are identified using the K. Doi method, enabling the delineation of spatio-functional zones. The results reveal a strong dominance of undeveloped land (77% of the total area), particularly agricultural land, alongside a compact central zone characterised by residential and service functions. The study demonstrates how historical development, economic structure, and metropolitan proximity shape the spatial organisation of small towns. The proposed methodology highlights the usefulness of cadastral data combined with grid-based spatial analysis for identifying S-FPs and supporting local planning processes.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050864

Authors: Jackson Adriano Albuquerque André da Costa Gustavo Henrique Merten Ana Carolina De Mattos E Avila Gunnar Kirchhof

Sand grain size strongly influences the physical and hydraulic behaviour of sandy soils, particularly water retention, pore distribution, and water movement under unsaturated conditions. This study evaluated the effect of five sand grain-size classes, ranging from very coarse to very fine, on pore distribution, aeration, water retention, and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity. Quartz sand samples with different particle sizes were saturated and subjected to matric tensions ranging from 10 to 15,000 hPa. Very fine sand (0.053–0.106 mm) showed the highest field capacity (0.38 m3 m−3) and available water content (0.30 m3 m−3), which were associated with a predominance of pores between 0.2 and 3 μm in diameter. In contrast, coarser sand fractions were dominated by macropores (>50 μm) and exhibited lower water retention. Permanent wilting point values remained low and similar among grain-size classes (≈0.02 m3 m−3). Under unsaturated conditions (matric tensions > 100 hPa), very fine sand exhibited hydraulic conductivity values up to ten times greater than those of coarser fractions. Overall, decreasing sand particle size increased water retention and plant-available water while reducing macroporosity and aeration capacity. These findings demonstrate that sand grain-size distribution plays a major role in regulating water dynamics in sandy soils and may support the development of more efficient irrigation and soil management strategies to improve water conservation and plant water availability in drought-prone environments.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050863

Authors: Chuqi Wang Yinglin Wang Jiwen Lu Liang Li

National parks are widely recognized as a key spatial conservation strategy for simultaneously safeguarding biodiversity and sustaining ecosystem services, yet comprehensive and causally robust evaluation frameworks are still needed to accurately assess their effectiveness and support evidence-based management. This study evaluates the conservation effectiveness of Qianjiangyuan National Park (QJYNP) from 2015 to 2024 using a multidimensional index, a PSM-DID quasi-experimental framework, and interpretable machine learning. The results show that the direct policy effect was significantly positive during 2015–2020, but shifted to a negative cumulative effect by 2024. The spillover effect in the buffer zone also turned significantly negative, potentially associated with tourism-related development shifting outward. In addition, slope, temperature, and population density were identified as key drivers of EEI heterogeneity with nonlinear threshold effects, while road-related impacts intensified over time. These findings indicate that quasi-experimental approaches better capture phased policy effects than conventional descriptive comparisons, and suggest that simple boundary controls are insufficient; instead, buffer zones should be incorporated into integrated management frameworks to mitigate external development pressures.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050862

Authors: Junchen Yuan Yi Huang Lizhi Miao

Existing soil and water conservation standards suffer from fragmentation, inconsistent cross-referencing, and limited machine interpretability, hindering efficient regulatory compliance and decision making. To address these challenges, we developed SwacGPT, an intelligent system that integrates domain-specific knowledge graph construction with large language models for enhanced standard interpretation and reasoning. Specifically, we constructed a domain-specific knowledge graph (SwacKG) using a hybrid approach that combines rule-based templates with a pre-trained BERT-based model. This graph systematically organizes conservation standards via multi-dimensional semantic relationships, with 87.8% entity extraction precision and 84.9% relation extraction precision, enabling precise data association across heterogeneous regulatory sources. SwacGPT leverages both the graph-structured knowledge from the SwacKG and original textual content to provide intelligent reasoning capabilities. For rigorous validation, a comprehensive evaluation dataset comprising both objective and subjective questions was designed. Experimental results show that SwacGPT achieves scoring rates of 78.67% on single-choice questions, 81.65% on multiple-choice questions, and 80.5% on subjective short-answer questions, ranking the best among the other five evaluated models. This demonstrates that the synergistic integration of domain-specific KGs with tailored LLMs creates an effective solution for intelligent environmental governance, providing critical decision support for land space optimization and cross-jurisdictional coordination in sustainable land management.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050861

Authors: Ronghao Qi Ying Wang Feiyue Xu Shihan Li Zhiwei Xu Hezi Yizhaq Yonghui Wang Shuangwen Yi

Central Asia is a typical arid region where surface water resources are scarce and primarily sustained by westerly precipitation and glacier meltwater. Lakes and their drainage basins therefore play a critical role in sustaining fragile oasis ecosystems, and their responses to climatic variability and human activities provide key insights into regional environmental change. Aibi Lake, a representative terminal lake in arid Central Asia, is surrounded by abundant nebkhas developed on the dried lakebed. These landforms reflect the coupled vegetation-aeolian processes. However, their formation and evolution remain poorly constrained due to limited high-precision chronology. Here we establish a robust chronology for nebkha development in the southeastern Aibi Lake basin by integrating single-grain K-feldspar pIR50IR150 dating with Cs-137 measurements, and reconstruct environmental changes using grain-size distributions and magnetic susceptibility. Internal checks indicate that the single-grain pIR50IR150 protocol is suitable for dating young nebkha sediments. Cs-137 is mainly concentrated in the upper ~30 cm, within which two fallout horizons (1963 and 1986) are identified despite the relatively coarse sampling resolution in the uppermost section. The K-feldspar pIR50IR150 age at ~30 cm agrees with the independent Cs-137 constraint, further supporting the reliability of the established chronology. The combined age control indicates that the main nebkha body accumulated over the past ~200 years, whereas the underlying deposits likely reflect erosion and reworking of inter-nebkha surfaces during nebkha development. The recent nebkha formation initiated around ~200 years ago, followed by slow accretion under weak aeolian conditions, rapid growth since the mid-20th century driven by intensified aridification and accelerated lake shrinkage, and a recent decline in sediment accumulation associated with surface stabilization. These results demonstrate that young Nitraria nebkhas can serve as sensitive archives for reconstructing recent aeolian activity and environmental change at decadal-to-centennial timescales in arid terminal lake basins.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050860

Authors: Yuxuan Ji Gui Chen Qidi Fan Qiaohong Fan Kai Su Wenxiong Lin Shuisheng Fan

Scientifically assessing ecosystem health and optimizing ecological source areas (ESAs) are essential for effective environmental management, particularly in ecologically strategic mountain barrier regions. However, existing studies face challenges in identifying and optimizing ESAs. To address these limitations, this study integrated the contribution–vigor–organization–resilience (CVOR)-based ecosystem health framework, a genetic algorithm (GA), and circuit theory to assess ecosystem health, optimize ESAs, and identify ecological corridors (EC) and restoration priorities in the Daiyun Mountain Rim. The results demonstrate the following: (1) a significant ecosystem health decline from 2012 to 2022, evidenced by a 38.97% to 21.09% reduction in high-priority ecological zones accompanied by increased landscape fragmentation; (2) delineation of 90 GA-optimized ESA and 248 EC (2164.71 km), forming an interconnected ecological network; (3) enhanced connectivity metrics through GA optimization, showing α-index improvements of 0.15–0.23 and β-index gains of 0.05–0.08 compared to the traditional large-patch and morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA)-based ESA selection methods; (4) development of a tiered spatial strategy featuring primary/secondary restoration clusters and a “three-belt–one area–multiple clusters” framework for adaptive landscape governance. Although uncertainties remain due to the selected study period, parameter settings, and lack of field-based validation, this framework provides a useful reference for ecological planning, restoration prioritization, and ecosystem management in similar mountainous ecological barrier regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050859

Authors: Jianying Xiao Zhong Yang Yujie Huo

Land trusteeship is an innovative agricultural management model that connects smallholder farmers with modern agriculture. It promotes large-scale agricultural operations, but still faces the impacts of conventional natural disasters. Although agricultural disaster insurance serves as a critical mechanism for farmers to mitigate these natural risks, its risk-mitigation potential remains underutilized due to the persistent challenge of low insurance participation rates. This study develops a decision-making model for farmers’ purchase of agricultural disaster insurance under land trusteeship, drawing on protection motivation theory, market failure theory, and quasi-public goods theory. Using structural equation modeling, we empirically analyze survey data from 319 land-trusteed farmers to uncover the mechanisms and pathways influencing their insurance purchase decisions. The results indicate that: (1) Vulnerability and severity are positively associated with protection motivation through perceived response efficacy and self-efficacy, and protection motivation is directly associated with purchase decisions; (2) Government support has both direct and indirect effects on purchase behavior; and (3) Individual and household characteristics are significantly associated with purchase decisions, with pure farmers, Type I part-time farmers, and farmers with larger landholdings tending to purchase agricultural disaster insurance more often.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050858

Authors: Benlu Xin Ziyan Liu Wentao Zhang Zhuolin Wang Shibo Wu

The rapid expansion of ski tourism in Northeast China has triggered extensive land use and land cover change (LULCC), yet the micro-scale spatial mechanisms linking historical land conversion to the accessibility of tourist services remain largely unquantified. This study addresses this gap by integrating annual 30 m CLCD land cover data with GIS network analysis of Points of Interest (POIs) around 30 major ski resorts (2018–2023). Specifically, it makes a novel distinction between the accessibility outcomes of construction-oriented and agriculture-oriented land transitions. Results indicate that while forest-to-construction conversion significantly predicts reduced travel distances to services (e.g., hotels: r = −0.532, p < 0.01), a distinct and previously unreported agri-tourism synergy emerges: forest-to-cropland conversion is positively associated with higher per capita tourist spending (r = 0.366, p < 0.05). This finding challenges the conventional zero-sum view of land use competition and suggests that cultivated landscapes can function as complementary tourism assets. These empirical patterns provide an evidence-based framework for integrated land-transport planning in emerging winter sports destinations.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050857

Authors: Vladimír Šimanský Ján Horák

Biochar and algal extracts are promising organic soil amendments, but their synergistic effects on soil organic matter and the sorption complex are still insufficiently understood. Therefore, a 30-day laboratory incubation experiment was conducted using a Haplic Luvisol to evaluate the effects of biochar (S+B), an N-rich algal extract (S+AGN), and their combined application (S+AGN+B) in comparison with the untreated control soil (S). The results showed that biochar led to a substantial increase in soil organic carbon (Corg) by 49% in S+B and by 50% in S+AGN+B treatments compared to S. Labile carbon (CL) increased by 48% in S+B and by 40% in S+AGN+B. The algal extract alone did not significantly affect either CL or Corg. Non-labile carbon increased by 2.22 g kg−1 in S+B but slightly decreased in the combined treatment (−2.00 g kg−1), indicating different dynamics of stable carbon fractions when both amendments are applied simultaneously. The combined treatment S+AGN+B, however, had the strongest effect on soil sorption properties. Specifically, the sum of basic cations was the highest among all treatments (189 mmol(+)kg−1, i.e., +18–28 mmol(+)kg−1 compared to S, S+B, and S+AGN), while the cation exchange capacity (CEC) reached the highest values (198 mmol(+)kg−1, representing an increase of 7–27 mmol(+)kg−1 compared to the other treatments). The base saturation remained high across all treatments, and the highest value was observed in S+AGN+B (95.6%). PCA confirmed that the combined treatment produced the most pronounced shifts in the multivariate parameter space and demonstrated a synergistic effect exceeding the effects of the individual organic amendments. Overall, the results indicate that biochar is the dominant factor contributing to the accumulation of stable carbon and the improvement of CEC, whereas the algal extract enhances the accumulation of labile carbon fractions and synergistically promotes the saturation of the sorption complex. The combined application of biochar and algal N effectively increases soil organic matter and sorption capacity.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050856

Authors: Youngeun Kang Eujin Julia Kim Gyoungju Lee

Traditional urban landscape evaluations have primarily relied on either objective spatial metrics, such as the Green View Index (GVI), or subjective human surveys, often failing to capture the complex mechanisms of human environmental perception. This study proposes a novel Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) framework that integrates objective physical configuration with subjective cognitive assessment to predict human landscape preference. Utilizing 159 urban landscape images, we extracted physical features via semantic segmentation (SegFormer) and psychological perceptions via a zero-shot vision-language model (CLIP). Our hybrid Random Forest model successfully bridged these dimensions, achieving moderate yet promising predictive performance (Rsquare = 0.442). SHAP (Shapley Additive exPlanations) analysis revealed that psychological perceptions—specifically Safety (0.104), Fascination (0.096), and Tranquility (0.080)—outperformed traditional objective metrics like GVI (0.067) in determining overall preference, while sub-model interpretation linked these psychological responses to specific physical elements such as buildings, sky openness, low vegetation, and water bodies. The findings suggest that urban green space design should move beyond maximizing greenery quantity and instead prioritize spatial compositions that induce psychological security, visual interest, and restoration. The proposed framework offers a scalable and interpretable tool for human-centered landscape assessment, while acknowledging limitations related to sample size, cultural generalizability, pretrained model bias, and reliance on static two-dimensional imagery.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050855

Authors: Aishwarya Chandrasekaran Kat F. Fowler Christopher Lant

The concepts of anthromes and human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) are both valuable in understanding our human-dominated planet, yet they have never been integrated theoretically or empirically. Here we utilize an extensive county-level dataset on HANPP and its product-level components to derive, through cluster analysis, ten contemporary US anthromes. From highest to lowest density of harvested HANPP, the anthromes are: rainfed corn–soy, dairy fodder, spring wheat–small grain, dryland winter wheat, subtropical soy–cotton, commercial timber, mixed hardwood and pasture, recovered eastern forest, prairie–sagebrush rangeland, and arid and alpine sparse grazing. Expanding to thirteen anthromes maintains these, while bifurcating the commercial timber (softwood, hardwood), rainfed corn–soy (core, fringe) and mixed hardwood and pasture anthromes. Trend analysis shows the expansion of the high-HANPP rainfed corn–soy and the low-HANPP recovered eastern forest anthromes between 2002 and 2017, while some other anthromes with moderate HANNPharvest are contracting. The methods described here can be applied to any country where data on HANPP can be obtained.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050854

Authors: Heitor A. Cofferri Ramon F. B. da Silva Mateus Batistella Marko S. A. Monteiro

Brazil has a deficit of 27 Mha of native vegetation in rural properties and the ambition to restore 12 Mha by 2030 (Nationally Determined Contributions—Paris Agreement), while the state of São Paulo has committed to reforesting 1.5 Mha by 2025. The regulation of payment for environmental services (PES) is a new topic in the Brazilian legal system that also aims to contribute to this commitment. In 2021, a federal law established the national PES policy. For São Paulo state, the current regulation is a decree from 2022. This study analyzes whether the regulation of PES made by São Paulo state conveys all the actions provided for in the federal law, as well as whether there is effective public governance in this state’s regulation. This analysis is essential, since São Paulo regulated this through a decree and not specifically through legislation, which, in theory, reduces public participation and governance. We used an exploratory and deductive method to evaluate whether São Paulo’s regulation adequately reflects federal provisions and governance principles, ensuring the planning and implementation of PES.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050853

Authors: Shukun Wei Xianglong Tang Chenxi Zhao

As a strategic node of the Silk Road Economic Belt and a prototypical valley-type city, Lanzhou is subject to the dual constraints of rapid urbanization and an inherently fragile ecological foundation, making the coordination between urban expansion and ecosystem services a critical issue for regional sustainability. Drawing upon multi-temporal land use remote sensing datasets provided by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Resource and Environment Science Data Center, in conjunction with soil, meteorological, and socio-economic data, this study integrates a land use transition matrix, the InVEST model, a modified coupling coordination degree model, and the geographic detector to comprehensively examine land use dynamics, the spatiotemporal evolution of urban expansion, and the spatial heterogeneity of ecosystem services (i.e., carbon storage, water yield, habitat quality, and soil conservation) in Lanzhou. In addition, the coupling coordination relationship and its underlying driving mechanisms are systematically explored. The results demonstrate the following: (1) Between 1980 and 2020, urban land area in Lanzhou increased from 103.87 km2 to 286.83 km2, accounting for 2.17% of the total area, with cropland constituting the dominant source of expansion and exhibiting a fluctuating “high–low–high” conversion trajectory. (2) Ecosystem services exhibit pronounced spatial heterogeneity, with carbon storage and habitat quality displaying a pattern of “low in the southeast and high in the northwest”, water yield showing an increasing gradient from southeast to northwest, and soil conservation characterized by “lower values in central areas and higher values in peripheral regions”; (3) Urban expansion has accelerated significantly, with Yongdeng County and Gaolan County emerging as principal expansion hotspots during 2010–2020. (4) The dominant driving mechanism gradually shifted from natural factors to the synergistic interaction between natural and socioeconomic factors, and the interaction among driving factors markedly enhanced the explanatory power for ecosystem service evolution. (5) The coupling coordination degree has transitioned from widespread imbalance to a spatially differentiated pattern, characterized by relatively coordinated conditions in peripheral areas and persistent imbalance within the central urban core. These findings provide a robust scientific basis for territorial spatial optimization and the synergistic development of ecological and economic systems in valley-type cities, and offer important implications for sustainable development in arid and semi-arid regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050852

Authors: Zelin Li Ze Chen Chenglong Zhou Xinchun Liu Yu Wang Meiqi Song Jiacheng Gao Congzhen Zhu Ali Mamtimin Wen Huo

As the initial link in the dust cycle, sand saltation directly determines the release of dust aerosols into the atmosphere. Suspended dust can modify meteorological conditions, potentially altering sand saltation characteristics, though this relationship requires further investigation. The recent deployment of automatic visibility sensors has provided new observational support for this study. Using hourly observations from five meteorological stations in the Taklamakan Desert during March–August 2016–2024, together with reanalysis data, this study estimated threshold wind speeds under different dust-intensity conditions, as indicated by horizontal visibility. We analyzed sand saltation frequency and horizontal dust flux across the region under varying visibility conditions, and reassessed recent trends and drivers of dust emission. Results indicate that threshold wind speeds range between 4.67 and 4.71 m·s−1, with a notable increase in wind speed when horizontal visibility falls below 5 km. Based on these thresholds, our analysis reveals significant regional differences in both dust emission frequency and flux under varying visibility conditions, with clear skies also identified as an important contributor to dust emission. Specifically, horizontal dust flux in the Taklamakan Desert showed a decreasing trend during 2016–2021 and a slight increase during 2021–2024, and this recent change in dust-emission trends may be linked to changes in atmospheric circulation and meteorological conditions. These findings provide a scientific basis for dust forecasting, early warning, disaster prevention, and mitigation in the Taklamakan Desert and its surrounding areas.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050851

Authors: Xiaoqi Wang Yingjie Huang Wentao Sun Duohan Liang Bo Li

Understanding how sustainable urban competitiveness evolves within megaregions has become a central concern in urban and regional studies, particularly under the pressures of carbon neutrality, spatial inequality, and network-driven urbanization. This study develops a multidimensional framework to assess the sustainable competitiveness of cities in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei “2 + 36” urban agglomeration and examines its spatio-temporal evolution and relational structure. Using a 30-indicator system grounded in factor foundations, economic performance, innovation capacity, openness, and environmental livability, we construct a composite competitiveness index through principal component analysis (PCA). Kernel density estimation reveals a pattern of overall improvement accompanied by widening disparities, characterized by selective agglomeration and the emergence of a pronounced high-value tail. Spatial autocorrelation consistently indicates significant spatial dependence, while LISA analysis identifies persistent low–low clusters and limited spillover absorption around core cities. A modified gravity model further uncovers a transition from a linear, corridor-based linkage structure to a more polycentric and networked competitiveness system, albeit with enduring peripheral weak nodes. The study contributes theoretically by conceptualizing sustainable urban competitiveness as a multidimensional nexus shaped jointly by territorial attributes and relational network structures. It demonstrates that competitiveness dynamics in megaregions emerge from the interplay of hierarchical consolidation, spatial divergence, and network reconfiguration—challenging the traditional assumption of simple core-to-periphery diffusion. The findings offer broader global implications, showing that the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei case mirrors worldwide megaregional patterns, where proximity alone is insufficient to ensure functional integration, and where coordinated governance, network embeddedness and sustainability transitions increasingly determine regional competitiveness. This research provides a comprehensive analytical foundation for understanding and governing megaregional competitiveness in the era of sustainable development.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050850

Authors: Di Shi Qun Meng Yuandong Zou Jianbao Huang Ting Feng Lu Lu Hedong Wang Chengfeng He Chunqiang Zhao Tianyu Zeng Xiaoyu Hu Yitong Chen Xiaoxue Wang Xuemei Luo

Understanding how staple-crop geography aligns with climate resources is important for food-security planning under climate change. Focusing on rice, winter wheat and maize in China from 2001 to 2020, this study constructed 1 km crop-abundance grids from annual 30 m crop-distribution data and integrated weighted centres of gravity (COGs), Standard Deviational Ellipses (SDEs), effective accumulated temperature and a Climate Resource Matching Index (CRMI) to evaluate crop migration, spatial-form change and matching with thermal, pluvial and radiant resource centres. Results show that rice exhibited the strongest northeastward migration, with a cumulative COG path of 448.9 km, but its CRMI declined markedly, indicating that thermal relaxation did not translate into coordinated multi-resource improvement. Winter wheat remained anchored in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, with adjustment mainly occurring through internal concentration and persistent moisture constraints. Maize showed expansion before 2015 followed by partial correction, and its CRMI trough in 2015 was robust under alternative weighting schemes. Overall, China’s staple-crop change represents a differentiated spatial reconfiguration rather than a uniform northward shift. Because these metrics are national-scale, the findings should inform crop zoning as broad spatial signals rather than direct local yield responses.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050849

Authors: Yudan Pan Yang Chen Jin Cao

As urban waterfront public spaces have increasingly become important settings for residents’ daily leisure activities, there remains a lack of empirical evidence based on objective image data regarding how street-level visual environments influence different types of leisure activities. The existing studies have largely relied on macro-scale built environment indicators and paid limited attention to micro-scale visual perception from the pedestrian perspective. To address this gap, this study focuses on the core waterfront section of the Pearl River in Guangzhou. Behavioral observations were conducted across nine spatial units during different time periods on weekdays and weekends, yielding 54 samples of passive, active, and social activity intensity. Meanwhile, 109 street-view sampling points were established, generating 436 pedestrian-view images. Using Mask2Former with an ADE20K pre-trained model, visual environmental indicators—including the Green View Index (GVI), Sky View Index (SVI), built environment proportion, road proportion, and visual diversity (Entropy)—were extracted. Spearman correlation and multiple linear regression were applied to examine their effects on activity intensity. The results show that leisure activities are generally more active in the evening and on weekends, with social activities exhibiting the strongest temporal variation. Active activities remain relatively stable, passive activities show temporal dependence, and social activities display localized high-intensity clustering. Regression results reveal differentiated environmental responses: visual diversity has a stable positive effect on passive activities, active activities show weak associations with visual variables, and social activities are the most sensitive, with GVI, SVI, and built proportion showing significant negative effects, while visual diversity shows a significant positive effect. The social activity model also demonstrates the highest explanatory power (Adj. R2 = 0.488). Overall, this study develops a street-view semantic segmentation-based method for quantifying waterfront visual environments, demonstrates the critical role of visual environmental composition in shaping activity patterns, and provides empirical support for the fine-grained and activity-oriented optimization of waterfront public spaces.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050848

Authors: Lijuan Wang Dakun Yang Zichen Zhang

Revealing the spatial differentiation patterns of cultivated land multifunctionality contributes to the improvement of cultivated land protection policies. This study investigated the spatiotemporal differentiation characteristics and functional zoning of cultivated land multifunctionality in Alpine Valley Area from a topographic gradient perspective. An evaluation index system for cultivated land multifunctionality in Alpine Valley Area was constructed across four dimensions: production (PF), social (SF), ecological (EF), and landscape (LF) functions. Using Yulong County, Yunnan Province, as a case study, methods including kernel density analysis, standard deviation ellipse theory, topographic gradient analysis, and hierarchical clustering were employed to quantify the horizontal and topographic gradient characteristics of the multifunctionality of cultivated land from 2010 to 2020, thereby delineating functional zones. Results indicated: (1) Cultivated land multifunctionality shows clear topographically-dependent spatial differentiation: PF concentrates in central basins and northwest specialty agricultural zones, SF overlaps with production but with more dispersed high/low values, EF follows a “high in the center, low on the lateral areas” pattern, and LF remains relatively stable; (2) Significant hierarchical differences in cultivated land functions were observed along the elevation, slope, and terrain niche index (TNI) gradients. PF, EF, and LF generally decreased with increasing elevation, slope, and TNI, whereas the dominance of SF exhibited an inverted-V-shaped distribution along the gradient. (3) The study area was divided into five zones: Flat-Basin Agritourism Zone (FAZ), River-Valley Eco-Agriculture Zone (REZ), Sub-Alpine Specialty Agricultural Production Zone (SSAPZ), Sub-Alpine Steep Slope Integrated Management Zone (SSIMZ), and Mid-Mountain Steep Slope Ecological Conservation Zone (MSECZ), with differentiated strategies proposed for each. This study innovatively integrates a topographic gradient perspective, TNI, and hierarchical clustering to systematically evaluate the cultivated land multifunctionality in Alpine Valley Area, providing a new methodological framework for similar mountainous regions.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050847

Authors: Yan Xiao Jingyi Huo Lingkun Wang Peijin Sun Yan Zhu

This study assesses the configuration potential of embedded outdoor sports facilities in high-density urban areas in response to persistent challenges related to supply–demand imbalance, limited accessibility, and low spatial efficiency under stock-based urban renewal. Embedded sports facilities, characterized by multifunctional land use and efficient resource integration, offer a promising pathway to alleviate these pressures. This study proposes a multidimensional framework to assess configuration potential by integrating multi-source data, spatial analysis, and quantitative evaluation methods. The assessment system is structured around three core dimensions: supply–demand improvement, use convenience, and environmental suitability. The TOPSIS model is applied to evaluate the configuration potential of 1268 parcels at the micro-scale. Results reveal a spatial pattern characterized by clustered low-potential parcels in central areas and scattered high-potential parcels in peripheral zones. The results reveal that low-potential clusters notably coincide with areas characterized by concentrated educational land uses and complex natural topographic conditions. Notably, more than 40 percent of high-potential parcels are located within blue–green infrastructure spaces. These findings provide practical evidence to support precise sports facility planning and community-scale renewal strategies in high-density urban environments.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050846

Authors: Tiean Zou Yutong Zhang Wenbo Duan Yuhao Liu Xin Meng Yuexin Zhang Xingyuan Fu

As the inner driving factor of space vitality, environmental perception can be expressed in many ways. Given the current lack of in-depth research on related perceptions, the study integrated theoretical origin and empirical study methods to clarify the role that preference played as the common foundation of different expression ways of environmental perception. The study also explored the interaction mechanism of different preference expression ways in the “quality-to-vitality” pathway and significant environmental characteristics of them, so as to realize the transformation from landscape design to urban vitality. Key findings indicate that: (1) Three environmental preference expressions—emotion, satisfaction, and behavioral preference—collectively lend credence to a significant chain mediation pathway (“emotion → satisfaction → behavioral preference”) in the quality-to-vitality process; (2) Pedestrian safety infrastructure (e.g., traffic barricades, well-maintained pavements) could ensure perceived security and walking activities; (3) Cultural/recreational facilities mean complementary legibility-enhancing elements (appropriate spatial enclosure, pleasant color schemes, architectural coherence) to evoke positive affect; (4) Streetscape diversity and visual interest might mitigate monotony induced by excessive block length, serving as vital vitality catalysts in some degree.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050844

Authors: Yuantai Ning Enxu Wang

The built environment is the core material carrier shaping urban vitality, and its impact on urban vitality constitutes a key research hotspot in urban geography and urban–rural planning. Most existing studies focus on single cities and single scales. They pay insufficient attention to the heterogeneity of their relationship across different city types and spatial scales. They also lack a systematic framework for multi-dimensional comparative analysis. This study takes Chengdu and Chongqing as cases. They are the core cities of the Chengdu–Chongqing Twin-City Economic Circle. Three grid scales are applied. Using the XGBoost–SHAP-integrated model, this paper explores the differences in indicator importance, nonlinear impacts, and threshold effects of built environment on urban vitality. The objectives of this study are as follows: (1) This study will reveal the spatiotemporal differentiation characteristics and patterns of urban vitality across multiple cities, multiple grid scales, and multiple time periods. (2) This study will identify the relative importance of built environment indicators and their heterogeneous patterns across different cities and grid scales. (3) This study will clarify the nonlinear relationship between the built environment and urban vitality, as well as grid-scale differences and city differences. The results show the following: (1) Urban vitality exhibits significant distribution differences across cities, grid scales, and times. (2) In terms of relative importance, mean building height and building density are both important influencing indicators of urban vitality at multiple grid-scales in different cities. The effects of certain built environment indicators on urban vitality vary across cities and grid scales. Road intersection density plays a prominent role in Chengdu, while commercial accessibility has a significant influence in Chongqing. As the scale changes, indicators including road density, road intersection density, and commercial accessibility demonstrate distinct variation patterns. (3) The nonlinear effects of the built environment on urban vitality are significant and differ across cities and grid scales. The nonlinear effects of certain built environment indicators in Chongqing are more complex than those in Chengdu. As the scale changes, the nonlinear effect trends and thresholds of certain built environment indicators also show significant variations. Based on multi-city and multi-scale spatial analysis, this study deepens our systematic understanding of the relationship between the built environment and urban vitality. It provides a quantitative basis for understanding the interaction between human activities and physical spaces in different types of cities and at different grid scales. It also provides a referable paradigm for multi-dimensional analysis in similar studies.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050845

Authors: Zhimin Qin Kanxuan Huang

As a policy-driven land use transition initiative bridging poverty eradication and sustainable development, China’s Poverty Alleviation Relocation (PAR) program exemplifies how state-led resettlement can reconfigure land use patterns while balancing immediate livelihood security with long-term community capacity development. The integration of large-scale PAR communities into new urbanization is a critical postrelocation task that is essential for consolidating poverty eradication achievements and enhancing endogenous development capacity. This study examined how the configuration of policy instruments shapes the endogenous development capacity of PAR communities during their transition to new urbanization. Employing a “tool–goal” analytical framework, we conducted a content analysis of 38 provincial-level policy documents (2021–present) using NVivo 20 software. The findings reveal that while local governments have established a preliminary policy system, structural imbalances persist: (1) uneven deployment of policy tools, (2) underutilization of demand-based policy tools, (3) tool–goal misalignment, and (4) insufficient market/societal participation in government-led measures. The discussion further reveals that the land use transition in the PAR program emphasizes the “living mode” (housing and public services) over the “livelihood mode” (productive resources and nonagricultural employment), creating structural dependency and leaving industrial land underutilized—as evidenced by weak policy support for industrial development (14.83%) and labour outmigration from resettlement areas. Drawing on the sustainable livelihoods framework, we further demonstrate how this exogenous-dominated policy mix disproportionately enhances physical and financial capital while constraining the accumulation of human and social capital—the very foundations of endogenous development capacity. To address these issues, we propose three key recommendations: (1) optimizing the policy mix to strengthen the endogenous development capacity of PAR communities; (2) realigning policy tools with objectives to achieve diversified yet coordinated goals; and (3) addressing implementation gaps to better leverage market mechanisms and social forces in promoting the sustainable urban integration of resettlement areas.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050843

Authors: Xinze Guo Yiming Xu Zhenqiang Liu Youquan Tan Tengfei Fan

Soil total nitrogen (TN) and soil total phosphorus (TP) are key soil quality indicators and provide critical ecological functions in the grasslands. This study analyzed the driving factors of TN/TP in the grasslands of Qinghai Province based on Shapley additive interpretation (SHAP) analysis. Four machine learning methods, namely random forest (RF), XGBoost 3.2.0, support vector machine, and Cubist, were used to establish spatial prediction models for TN/TP. Vegetation factors (Net Primary Production and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and precipitation-related factors (Aridity Index and Mean Annual Precipitation) were the most important variables for TN, indicating plant productivity and precipitation are strongly associated with TN accumulation. Elevation and temperature-related factors (Mean Annual Temperature and evapotranspiration) were the most important variables for TP, demonstrating that elevation-mediated temperature was the major factor affecting the TP accumulation. XGBoost and RF were the optimal models for TN and TP, respectively. TN exhibited a decreasing spatial trend from east to west, while the northwestern and southwestern areas showed relatively higher and lower TP, respectively. Total TN and TP stocks were estimated to be 3.57 × 108 t and 0.88 × 108 t, respectively. This study provides data support and suggestions for sustainable soil nutrient management in the grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Land doi: 10.3390/land15050842

Authors: Upendra M. Sainju Chloe Turner-Meservy Menuka Maharjan

Carbon footprint and C balance are used to understand whether an agroecosystem is a C source or sink. Our objective was to evaluate C inputs and outputs for determining C balance for pulse crops in rotation with spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) from 2021 to 2022 to 2024–2025 in the US northern Great Plains. Pulse crops (chickpea [Cicer arietinum L], lentil [Lens culinaris Medik.], and pea [Pisum sativum L.]) were rotated with spring wheat to form four crop rotations (chickpea–spring wheat, lentil–spring wheat, pea–spring wheat, and spring wheat–spring wheat). Straw C was 26–74% lower for pulse crops than spring wheat, but 19–23% greater for pea–spring wheat than chickpea–spring wheat and lentil–spring wheat. Root biomass and rhizodeposit C were 24–31% greater for spring wheat–spring wheat than chickpea–spring wheat and pea–spring wheat. Grain C was 21% greater for pea than chickpea, but 64–97% lower for pulse crops than spring wheat. Cumulative CO2 flux from May to April was 14–17% greater for spring wheat–spring wheat than chickpea–spring wheat and lentil–spring wheat. Soil C sequestration rate was greater for pea and spring wheat than chickpea and lentil, or greater for pea–spring wheat and spring wheat–spring wheat than other crop rotations. Carbon balance was 5–16% lower for pulse crops than spring wheat, or 9–16% lower for pulse crop–spring wheat rotations than spring wheat–spring wheat. Because of greater C input and C sequestration rate, spring wheat can reduce C loss compared to pulse crops, or continuous spring wheat can reduce the loss compared to pulse crop–spring wheat rotations.