We are pleased to announce the winner of the Land 2022 Influential Female Research in Land System Science Award—Prof. Dr. Harini Nagendra.

Name: Prof. Dr. Harini Nagendra
Affiliation: Azim Premji University, India
Research interests: urban ecology and sustainability; land change science; remote sensing for ecology and conservation

We acknowledge that scientific progress is a collaborative and inclusive effort that necessitates gender equality and equity in access to publishing across the Global North and South. This award aims to encourage female scholars to continue to advance the field of land science, and we will continue to reward those female scholars who have made noteworthy contributions to it. We wish them every success in their careers.

We hope you enjoy the interview.

1. Can you provide a brief summary of your current research activities?

I'm the director of the Research Centre at the Azim Premji University in Bangalore in India, which is equivalent to a dean or coordinator of research activities at the university. And I also directly lead the Center for Climate Change and Sustainability at the university, which means that we are a larger center looking at issues of climate change and sustainability that are largely affecting India, but also affecting the world.

As part of this, my own research is on cities in environmental change and land change in cities, and how India should adapt to the climate crisis. My teaching also revolves around these areas. I teach and have created courses on GIS, remote sensing, land change science, sustainability and planetary boundaries; of course, land change is one of the very important planetary boundaries that we're dealing with.

I also do a lot of work on biodiversity and the interconnection between land cover change, landscape ecology and biodiversity.

2. What sparked your initial interest in land science and which aspects of research do you find most satisfying?

I started with my undergraduate degree in microbiology, chemistry and zoology, and my master's degree was in biological sciences, but largely molecular biology. I came into land change science relatively late, during my master’s, just prior to my Ph.D. That is because I did not find molecular biology very appealing, but I loved looking at landscapes and the spatial connections that influence ecology, people and sustainability.

I did my Ph.D. at the Center for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, and my focus was on understanding ecological patterns at a large scale in the Western Ghats (India), and for that you need to understand how these landscapes related to each other in terms of spatial pattern and movements between them. So I started using remote sensing satellite image data—that was my introduction to the world of land change science.
What I find most fascinating is understanding the pattern, process and interplay between patterns of land change and the human processes that drive these changes. It's a feedback process. People influence landscapes—and landscapes influence, in turn, the way people think and behave, shaping landscapes again. I find these feedback loops very interesting to understand, especially to compare cases to see how people in different parts of the world interact with landscapes differently. In India you might have a different way of interacting with landscapes; in mountain areas people think differently from the coast, and in cities people think and behave differently with landscapes as compared to people in rural areas. That kind of comparison is something that fascinates me.

3. As a woman working in the field of land science, how do you perceive your role and what were the main challenges you faced?

I didn't realize it when I started working in the field of landscape ecology and land change science in 1993, but I was actually one of the first few people to use digital and computer methods for land change science in India. Later I realized that I was one of the few women globally too who was doing this at that time. In 1993, there weren't too many women in this field. There were many researchers doing this, but they were mostly men.
I didn't come in with that understanding, I just came in as somebody who liked this and started work.

So, I would say I've been fortunate not to have faced too many obstacles for being a woman in the field myself. But a lot of my Ph.D. students, and master’s and undergraduate students have been women who do a great deal of fieldwork. While it depends on the landscape you select, safety is always a preoccupation. When you go into the field and do field research, whether I do it myself or plan for my students, it's something we must be very aware of and plan very carefully.

But I would say that there is also quite a bit of unstated bias that women have to fight, especially the presumption that women can't do well at certain kinds of things, such as computer processing, digital processing, the kinds of mathematical or engineering understanding of the big data challenges.

Then again, I've been very pleased to always work with women, younger women and to mentor them. So I would also say that while I witness how challenging it is for them in multiple ways, I am also deeply satisfied to see how much the field has advanced. Now you find as many women in the field of land change science as men, even in leadership positions. If you look at the cutting-edge research in land change science, a lot of it is being done by women. So, I would say that this aspect really feels satisfying to me, looking back at the last 30 years in the field.

4. What are the current opportunities and challenges facing women in science, and what message would you like to convey to young women pursuing a career in this field?

I think the world is open like never before. It's not equal yet, but we're much closer to an equal footing than we were before. So, my one message would be to embrace the opportunity.

I think what happens is that women are sometimes very sensitive to unspoken societal expectations. If society, or their lab environment, or their home environment is disapproving, not all women, but some women do tend to give in to that pressure and agree to select another field of work, or even quit science altogether.

My message to women would be to just push ahead and persist, because at some point the boundaries will give way. Take the support from as many women mentors as you can find, whether in your direct area or an allied area, and find supportive male mentors and colleagues as well. But do always look for supportive women mentorship. If you don't find it at your place of work, you can find it elsewhere. I've had a lot of women reach out to me from different parts of the world, and with the increasing inter-connectedness of the world, you can now be connected to mentors and find collaborations online, which can also be of great help.

So, I would say push ahead, find your mentors, find your tribe and keep working as a community.

5. What is your aspiration for gender equality in science in the future?

My aspiration would be for a world where the unspoken bias in school environments—where young women are often told to stay away from STEM subjects and move towards social science subjects—changes across the world.

A time when women can be encouraged to take up professional careers in mathematics and science as often as they are in biology and social science, where essentially, they can do what they want to do without feeling that these are subjects suited for women, and those are subjects more suited for men. Unfortunately, you still find areas like engineering, physics and mathematics that are really male-dominated. I would like to see those societal barriers dissolve and break down. That has to be done, like I said, at an earlier level, at the high school and undergraduate levels, which is when many girls and young women drop out of STEM subjects.

6. Can you share your thoughts on the development of open access in the publishing industry?

Speaking as a researcher from the Global South, open access has many benefits, but it also has a lot of potential disadvantages. I'd like to speak of both. The big benefit for us is that open access allows people from the Global South who may not have money to access the publications of journals that you otherwise might not have because they're behind a paywall, and that kind of access to data is really important.

The challenge is the publication costs. Because at most open access journals you pay for publication, and the costs are steep and that sets up another disparity—some people have grants to support these publications, and benefit from them, others lack grants to support this research, especially academics in the Global South. Even if journals offer discounts, the amount to be paid remains very high. I see many young early career researchers who want to publish in an open access journal putting their own money into paying the Article Processing Charges. Sometimes, this could be as much as their salary for a year, because the salary disparities in the Global South are so high. So this is something that I really wonder about, because if you can't afford to publish in the open access journals, where does that leave you as a young scholar? I can also see it from the journals’ point of view, that each journal must sustain its finances. I don't really know what the solution is. But we must find a way to support more scholars from the Global South, especially young scholars, with complete waivers.

Overall, open access is both a blessing and a challenge, especially since it is setting up a different kind of inequity—and we have to find ways to deal with that.

7. What are your long-term research goals?

I want to start a systematic study of cities across the world. The world is going to see a huge growth in cities—people who live in cities are supposed to increase from 50% to about 80% in the next 30 years or so. This means that a lot of the future urban areas of the world are yet to be built. How can we build them more sustainably? And how are they being built now? I’m especially interested in the pattern-process linkage that I was talking about earlier. What are the spatial patterns of these cities that will be built? How will those patterns of urban growth impact water, biodiversity, other kinds of land change parameters, and how can we use this knowledge to design future cities in a better way? That's something that I really want to study in the next few years, looking specifically for insights that can hopefully drive policy.

8. Do you have any recommendations for the Land journal?

I think it is important to have a greater focus on promoting participation from the Global South on an equal footing, encouraging ways in which people can contribute without these payments. It would be especially useful to have a specific program for early career researchers, which could include possibilities for full waivers for their papers. Those kinds of grants would be very helpful for academics at the early stages of their career, especially for Ph.D. students and postdocs, because that's the stage at which they need to really publish and also the stage at which they often face strong financial constraints of different kinds. An expansion of grants and fee waivers for these researchers would be especially important and useful.

In terms of areas to focus on, I think studies of urbanization in the Global South would be something that Land could emphasize, as it remains a knowledge gap.

MDPI is attending the Japan Geoscience Union Meeting 2023 (JpGU 2023). The event will be held at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan, from 21 to 26 May 2023, and it is organized by the Japan Geoscience Union (JpGU). JpGU is an academic union that encompasses all the Earth and planetary science disciplines and related fields; additionally, it has been organizing annual meetings since 2005. JpGU 2023 will cover a wide range of Earth and planetary sciences, including space and planetary sciences, atmospheric and hydrospheric sciences, human geosciences, solid Earth sciences, and biogeosciences. The JpGU annual meeting provides participants with a good opportunity to become familiar with cutting-edge research and unique approaches to research objects within their own special field and beyond. Representatives of the following MDPI journals will be attending:

• Land;
• Remote Sensing;
• Minerals;
• Sustainability;
• Drones;
• Geographies;
• Climate;
• Geomatics;
• Geosciences;
• Water;
• Quaternary;
• Sensors;
• Earth.

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (#Pub05). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://www.jpgu.org/meeting_e2023/.

We have entered an era of geospatial data proliferation, especially from remote sensing technologies, including, more recently, satellites and drones. This proliferation has led to the development of Open Access as well as many proprietary tools and services to assist organizations and people in general in being better prepared when facing increasingly more impactful disasters such as floods. Online cloud computing and fast-paced advances in machine learning models contribute greatly to this continuous progress.

At the global level, several flood-related tools are available for free, ranging from observations to modeling and forecasting, using field data, remotely sensed observations, as well as hydrologic and hydrodynamic models (for more details about available tools, see EOTEC DevNet’s tool tracking capacity building resources for flooding at https://eotec-dev.ceos.org/tools/). At the global level, several satellite-based mapping systems and tools are available and regularly used by a number of response and humanitarian agencies, such as the United Nations World Food Programme (UN WFP), the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and many others.

In this webinar, three internationally recognized experts will present some of these great developments in the areas of hydrology and flood management, discussing recent advances in topography, flood modeling, discharge measurements, and flood disaster mapping.

Date: 11 May 2023 at 3:00 p.m. CEST | 9:00 a.m. EDT | 9:00 p.m. Asia

Webinar ID: 896 2424 9140

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on how to join the webinar. Registrations with academic institutional email addresses will be prioritized.

Unable to attend? Register anyway and we will let you know when the recording is available to watch.

Webinar Chair and Keynote Speakers:

• Dr. Guy Schumann (Chair), School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom; Research and Education Department, RSS-Hydro, Dudelange, Luxembourg
• Dr. Laurence Hawker, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
• Dr. Angelica Tarpanelli, National Research Council, Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection of (CNR-IRPI), Italy
• Dr. Patrick Matgen, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), Esch-Belval Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

Relevant Topic:

“Advances in Earth Observation and Geosciences”
Topic Editors: Prof. Dr. Diego González-Aguilera and Dr. Pablo Rodríguez-Gonzálvez

Relevant Special Issues:

“Advances in Earth Observation to Improve Flood Disaster Monitoring and Management”
Special Issue Editors: Dr. Guy Schumann, Dr. Laura Giustarini and Dr. Ramona-Maria Pelich

“Human-Induced Disaster and Conflict Analysis, Prediction, and Prevention by Geospatial Analytics and Information Systems”
Special Issue Editors: Prof. Dr. Maria Antonia Brovelli and Prof. Dr. Songnian Li

“Land Use Planning, Sustainability and Disaster Risk Reduction”
Special Issue Editors: Dr. Miguel Leal,  Dr. Paulo Miguel Madeira, Dr. Raquel de Melo and Dr. Sérgio
Cruz de Oliveira

 “Drones for Natural Hazards”
Special Issue Editors: Dr. Vasil Yordanov, Dr. Luigi Barazzetti and Prof. Dr. Maria Antonia Brovelli

On Tuesday, 25 April 2023, MDPI and the journals Remote Sensing, Drones, Land and IJGI organized the webinar entitled EO&GEO Series: New Milestones in Drones—from New Drones Designs to Real-Time and Artificial Intelligence Applications.

It is clear that drones have become an increasingly popular tool for mapping and surveying, with their ability to capture high-resolution and multi-sensor imagery. However, traditional mapping techniques often require significant time and effort to process the collected data before it can be used; therefore, real-time drone mapping offers a game-changing solution that is going to transform various application fields, such as emergency response or agriculture. 

Thanks to our recognized speakers, we had the opportunity to share with the audience novel insights into drone technology, from real-time mapping applications and novel drone designs to close to market vertical solutions in agriculture.

Please note that this webinar is associated with the Topic titled “Advances in Earth Observation and Geosciences”.  The deadline is 31 December 2023.

You can watch the recorded webinar here:

Webinar Chairs and Keynote Speakers:

• Dr. Diego González-Aguilera (Chair), Cartographic and Land Engineering Department, Higher Polytechnic School of Avila, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain;
• Pablo Rodríguez-Gonzálvez (Chair), Department of Mining Technology, Topography and Structures, University of León, Ponferrada, Spain;
• Dr. Francesco Nex, Earth Observation Science (ESO) Department, ITC Faculty, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands;
• Katerina Margarita, Acceligence Hellas Ltd, Greece;
• Mr. Xavier Silva Garcia, Hemav Technology SL., Spain

MDPI will be attending the 2023 Science and Technology Annual Meeting of Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences, which will be held from 22 to 23 April 2023, in Nanchang, China. The theme of the annual meeting is “Develop green and low-carbon, build a beautiful China”.

The annual meeting has arranged for an opening ceremony and specially invited keynote speeches, subsession seminars, high-end forums, special sessions for young scientists, poster exchanges, environmental protection science and technology achievement exhibitions, special events, etc. A total of 1800 delegates are expected to attend. Four academicians and other well-known experts are expected to deliver keynote speeches on climate change, the prevention and control of atmospheric, water, and soil environmental pollution, and environmental management science as well as technology. The invited keynote speeches touch on fields such as achievements in transformation.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Sustainability;
• Toxics;
• Energies;
• Climate;
• Land;
• Minerals;
• Resources;
• Forests;
• Remote Sensing;
• Earth;
• Clean Technologies.
  

MDPI will be attending the 8th International Wildland Fire Conference (IWFC), which will take place in Porto, Portugal, from 16 to 19 May 2023. The first IWFC meeting was held in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1989. Since then, a series of conferences have been initiated to promote the exchange of expertise and international cooperation in wildland fire management. Previous conferences have helped organizations and professionals from over 70 countries develop common firefighting vocabulary, theory, training manuals, techniques, and operational standards. The 8th IWFC aims to create a space for researchers to present their latest work in the field of wildland fire. The conference welcomes institutional or professional case studies, scientific work, and papers detailing operational successes or failures in dealing with complexity and uncertainty when governing or managing wildfire risk.

MDPI invites researchers from different backgrounds to attend this conference to share their latest views and research with us.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Forests;
• Land;
• Safety;
• Fire;
• Fuels.

If you plan on attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth and start a conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have.

We hope you will join us in celebrating and further protecting the planet’s forests this International Day of Forests, which takes place on the 21st of March. The theme for the 2023 International Day of Forests is "Forests and Health”. Forests give so much to our health, they purify the water, clean the air, capture carbon to fight climate change, provide food and life-saving medicines, and improve our well-being. It is up to us to safeguard these precious natural resources. At MDPI, our open access journals are primarily available online, reducing the company’s impact on deforestation and helping to protect the world’s forests.

Location: Nalati Grassland, Xinjiang, China Photo by Carolyn Chen, Sydney University	Location: Jiangshan, Zhejiang, China Photo by Pengcheng Ye, Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science	Location: Qinling, Shanxi, China Photo by Yuan Li, Shaanxi Normal University

To access more content about Nature Photography Campaign and other related series activities, please click here.

• “Facilitating Prescribed Fire in Northern California through Indigenous Governance and Interagency Partnerships”
  Fire 2021, 4, 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/fire4030037
• “Capitalization and Capital Return in Boreal Carbon Forestry”
  Earth 2022, 3, 204-227; https://doi.org/10.3390/earth3010014
• “A Knowledge Review on Integrated Landscape Approaches”
  Forests 2022, 13, 312; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13020312
• “National Implementation of the Forest Europe Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management”
  Forests 2022, 13, 191; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13020191
• “Carbon Footprint and Feedstock Quality of a Real Biomass Power Plant Fed with Forestry and Agricultural Residues”
  Resources 2022, 11, 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/resources11020007
• “The Necrobiome of Deadwood: The Life after Death”
  Ecologies 2023, 4, 20-38; https://doi.org/10.3390/ecologies4010003

As a leading open access publisher, MDPI provides scholars with a high-quality and rich academic exchange platform by continuously expanding into new and exciting research areas.

In December 2022, MDPI launched five new journals, covering multiple subjects such as life sciences, biology, medicine and pharmacology, social sciences and humanities. These new journals are being edited by established scholars across the world.

If you are interested in creating more open access journals with us to publish cutting-edge research, please send your journal proposal application to newjournal-committee@mdpi.com.

We would like to congratulate Prof. Dr. Hualou Long, Advisory Board Member of Land (ISSN: 2073-445X), who has been elected to the prestigious Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences for his achievements in the fields of human geography focusing on land-use transition and rural restructuring. This is an award granted by the Academy of Social Sciences to leading academics, policymakers, and practitioners of the social sciences. New fellows are elected each year by the Academy of Social Sciences from among outstanding scholars in the UK and international humanities and social sciences.

MDPI is pleased to announce that we now display the co-authors’ email addresses in addition to the corresponding author’s email address on the webpage of published papers, protected by Captcha. For more information about this change, please visit the journal’s instructions for authors page. 

We believe this change will facilitate academic discussions and advance our cause of open science and research. The corresponding authors are responsible for communicating with their co-authors and indicating in our system (https://susy.mdpi.com/) if co-authors would prefer for their email addresses not to be displayed.

Conference: 2023 AAG Annual Meeting
Date: 23–27 April 2023
Location: Denver, USA

MDPI will be attending the 2023 AAG Annual Meeting as an exhibitor, and we welcome researchers from different backgrounds to visit and share their latest ideas with us.

This conference is organized by the American Association of Geographers (AAG). The theme of the meeting is “Toward More Just Geographies”. At the meeting, specialists will share and discuss the latest in research and applications in geography, sustainability, and GIScience.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Remote Sensing (leading journal);
• Sustainability (leading journal);
• IJGI;
• Hydrology;
• Land;
• Water;
• Earth;
• Atmosphere;
• IJERPH;
• Fire;
• Oceans;
• GeoHazards;
• Coasts;
• Geomatics.

Remote Sensing (ISSN: 2072-4292, IF: 5.349) publishes regular research papers, reviews, technical notes and communications covering all aspects of remote sensing science, from sensor design and validation/calibration to its application in geosciences, environmental sciences, ecology, and civil engineering. The aim is to publish novel/improved methods/approaches and/or algorithms of remote sensing to benefit the community, open to everyone in need of them.

Sustainability (ISSN: 2071-1050, IF: 3.889) encourages experts to publish their experimental, computational and theoretical research on sustainability. This encompasses topics related to social sciences, natural and applied science and engineering, in order to enable the application and development of sustainability.

If you are planning to attend this conference, please do not hesitate to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit the following website: https://www.aag.org/events/aag2023/.

On 9 February 2023, Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics, added the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science platform, streamlining the research process by allowing researchers to locate and link to preprints alongside other trusted content in the database.

The Preprint Citation Index will act as a bridge to connect cutting-edge preprints with peer-reviewed journal articles published within the Web of Science Core Collection. Alerts can be easily set to monitor new research across several repositories and authors will also be able to include preprints on their Web of Science Research Profile to more accurately display their various research outputs.

As of its launch, the Preprint Citation Index will provide nearly two million preprints from various repositories, including MDPI’s own Preprints.org.

MDPI's Preprints Platform – Preprints.org

To advance Open Science and the fast dissemination of research, MDPI offers researchers a free multidisciplinary preprint platform. Preprints.org accepts submissions from all research areas and offers authors high visibility, permanent archiving, article-level Metrics and immediately citable content by assigning a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all preprints.

During submission to any MDPI journal, authors have the option to share their research as a preprint. After an initial screening, the manuscript is available online in 48 hours or less. Once online, preprints can be downloaded, shared, commented on, and cited, providing authors maximum visibility.

We invite you to join the ranks of the over 100k researchers using Preprints.org and share your research.

For more information, please visit Preprints.org.

We are delighted to share with you 13 reprints of Special Issues published in 2022 in Land (ISSN: 2073-445X). They were selected by the Land Editorial Office, each with 10 or more articles published. You can read more reprints of the Special Issues published by Land here. If you are interested in editing a Special Issue, you are welcome to check out our new initiative—the Special Issue Mentor Program.

The articles below have been selected as 2022 Issue Cover Articles by the Editorial Office of Land (ISSN: 2073-445X). These articles came from multiple fields within the scope of Land and we hope they can provide insights and references for scholars in related fields.

As we reflect on the past year, the Editor-in-Chief Prof. Christine Fürst and all the staff from the Land Editorial Office extend great thanks to all who have contributed to the development of Land. We wish you all a joyful holiday season and a happy New Year filled with outstanding achievements. Let us welcome a few of our Editorial Board Members to express our gratitude and best wishes for the coming year.

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, IF: 3.905) is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modeling and data processing, ecosystem services, and multifunctionality and sustainability, etc., published monthly online by MDPI. The International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), European Land-use Institute (ELI), Landscape Institute (LI), and Urban Land Institute (ULI) are affiliated with Land, and their members receive a discount on the Article Processing Charge.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the MDPI Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the Issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars who may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mailing invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Performing editorial control of the Special Issue and quality control of the publications, both of which must be carried out in a timely manner;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
• Making and submitting decisions regarding submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Editorial Office of a journal you choose, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. The full list of MDPI journals is as follows: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, we will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

MDPI has just become the first open access (OA) publisher to reach the milestone of one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon! We are proud to share this special moment with the global scientific community.

This landmark has been reached thanks to the immeasurable support of more than 600,000 expert reviewers, 66,000 editorial board members and 6700 hard-working colleagues across MDPI’s global offices.

Within more than 25 years of publishing, our journals received 2.1 million manuscripts and generated 4.6 million peer review reports to get to one million papers published.

Reaching the milestone of one million articles published reinforces our mission to remove any existing barriers and to make scientific research accessible to all. Since its inception, MDPI’s goal has been to create reliable processes to make science open. This is a path towards facilitating the dissemination of novel insights in scientific communities.

Regular feedback from authors and reviewers shows that our service is greatly appreciated and needed. At the same time, the feedback helps us identify areas for further improvement.

As it stands, a significant share of published research findings remain closed access. More than half of the content published with the most well-known legacy publishers stays behind a paywall, and that is not including articles published in hybrid OA journals, or made available months or years after publication.

A new policy announced by the US administration in August 2022 requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. While the new policy does not mandate articles be published under an open access license, it is aligned with the open access movement in removing all barriers to research. Similarly, some of the most advanced research institutions in the world intend to have all funded research articles published in open access by 2025.

MDPI is proud to be the leading agent of the transition to open access.

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

We are pleased to announce that the website of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation has been revamped! For the past couple of months, our UX UI team and front-end developers have been working hard to launch the website in time for the opening of the Sustainability Awards nominations.

The website is not the only thing that has had a remodeling. Indeed, the format of the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award (ESLA) has been updated. ESLA is now a competition open to individual researchers or start-ups founded by researchers under the age of 35. Nominee applications will go through 2 rounds of selection until the final 3 are decided. The finalists will then be invited to give pitch presentations during the Award Ceremony to win either first place (10,000 USD) or runner-up (2 x 5000 USD).

The World Sustainability Award, on the other hand, remains the same: a total prize money of 100,000 USD is up for grabs by senior individual researchers or groups of researchers from the international research community.

Nominations for both the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader award are now open! Check out our new website for more information on how to nominate.

Recently, Clarivate™ revealed its 2022 list of Highly Cited Researchers™—individuals at universities, research institutes and commercial organizations.

The scientists who were selected for this year’s list of Highly Cited Researchers have published highly cited papers in the 11-year period from January 2011 to December 2021, with citation frequency in the top 1% of academic subjects and the same year of publication in the Web of Science^TM database. Based on the Web of Science Citation data, 6,938 researchers from across the globe who have demonstrated a disproportionate level of significant and broad influence in their chosen field or fields over the last decade have been awarded Highly Cited Researcher 2022 designations. The list is truly global, spanning 69 countries or regions and spread across a diverse range of research sciences and social sciences.

According to statistics, 13 Editorial Board Members of Land (ISSN: 2073-445X) have been featured on the list of Highly Cited Researchers of Clarivate in 2022. They are being recognized for their high-quality scientific research achievements and outstanding contributions to professional fields. The Land journal office sincerely congratulates all elected Editorial Board Members and hopes that they continue to have an academically productive relationship with the journal.

We are pleased to inform you that the open access journal Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, IF: 3.905) has been indexed in the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR): Area 08, Area 11, Area 14, and Class A - Sector 14/D1. We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to all authors, reviewers, and editors who have contributed to this journal and enabled this achievement.

Land is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil–sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modelling and data processing, ecosystem services, and multifunctionality and sustainability, etc., published monthly online by MDPI. The International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), European Land-use Institute (ELI), Landscape Institute (LI), and Urban Land Institute (ULI) are affiliated with Land, and their members receive a discount on the Article Processing Charge.

We warmly welcome you to consider Land as the platform for publishing your work.

Land Editorial Office

MDPI will be attending the 2022 BES Annual Meeting, held in Edinburgh, UK, from 18 to 21 December 2022. Throughout the conference, prominent researchers and government officials will give keynote speeches on pressing issues of ecology. The 2022 BES Annual Meeting provides an excellent opportunity for participants from industry and academia to keep up to date with the latest trends in ecology.

During this conference, MDPI will welcome researchers from different backgrounds to visit and share their latest views and research with us.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Sustainability;
• Birds;
• Urban Science;
• Land;
• Earth;
• Climate.

If you plan on attending this conference, feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions that you may have.

For more information about the conference, please see the following link: https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/events/bes-annual-meeting-2022.

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, IF 3.905) has launched the Section “Land Socio-Economic and Political Issues” in November 2019, for which Prof. Dr. Hossein Azadi serves as Editor-in-Chief. This Section welcomes contributions concerning different land policies and the nexus of human–land–environment tied with contemporary and historical land issues.

We are pleased to present the Editor’s Choice Articles of the Section “Land Socio-Economic and Political Issues” in 2020–2021, for which a snapshot of high-quality papers from the Section "Land Socio-Economic and Political Issues" is listed below:

1. “Quantifying the Economic Value of Ecosystem Services in Oil-Palm-Dominated Landscapes in Riau Province in Sumatra, Indonesia”
by Aulia, Ando Fahda, Harpinder Sandhu and Andrew C. Millington
Land 2020, 9(6), 194; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9060194
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/6/194

2. “Challenges of Food Waste Governance”
by Garske, Beatrice, Katharine Heyl, Felix Ekardt, Lea Moana Weber and Wiktoria Gradzka
Land 2020, 9(7), 231; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9070231
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/7/231

3. “3D Property Research from a Legal Perspective Revisited”
by Paasch, Jesper M. and Jenny Paulsson
Land 2021, 10(5), 494; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10050494
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/5/494?type=check_update&version=2

4. “Spatial Targeting of Agricultural Support Measures: Indicator-Based Assessment of Coverages and Leakages”
by LaFevor, Matthew C., Alexandra G. Ponette-González, Rebecca Larson and Leah M. Mungai
Land 2021, 10(7), 740; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10070740
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/7/740

5. “An Effectiveness Study on the Use of Different Types of LID for Water Cycle Recovery in a Small Catchment”
by Kim, Heenyun and Gunwoo Kim
Land 2021, 10(10), 1055; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10101055
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/10/1055

Submitting a manuscript:
This Section is currently open for submissions. Papers may be submitted via the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload/?journal=land.

Launching a Special Issue:
You have the opportunity to propose hot topics and edit a Special Issue together with experts in the field: https://www.mdpi.com/journalproposal/sendproposalspecialissue/land.

Joining the Editorial Board:
If you are an active researcher in the field of land and are interested in joining the Editorial Board, please do not hesitate to contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position.

Land Editorial Office

Peer reviewing constitutes an essential part of the publication process, ensuring that Land (ISSN: 2073-445X) maintains its high standards for the quality of its published papers. We are looking to recruit expert reviewers to help uphold the quality and efficiency of Land.

To qualify as a reviewer, applicants must have published around eight papers related to land science in the last 5 years and hold a Ph.D. degree.

We will extend the following benefits to reviewers:

• Reviewers will receive a discount voucher code based on the review quality;
• Reviewers will be included in the journal’s annual acknowledgment of reviewers; more details can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/2/215 ;
• Reviewers will be considered for the journal’s outstanding reviewer award; details can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/awards;
• Reviewers may be invited to join the Reviewer Board; see https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/submission_reviewers for more information;
• Reviewers can build their profile on Publons and have their reviewing activity automatically added for participating journals. Publons profiles can also be integrated into ORCID.

For more information about the role, please visit the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

If you are interested in this position, please submit your application at https://susy.mdpi.com/volunteer/journals/review. We hope you will join us on our team of reviewers.

After your registration is approved, you will be able to see a list of manuscripts for which reviewers are needed.

If you have any other questions, please contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com). We look forward to hearing from you.

Land Editorial Office

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, Impact Factor 3.905) is currently recruiting prestigious scholars from around the world to join our Editorial Board for the following 13 Sections:

• “Land Systems and Global Change”;
• “Landscape Ecology”;
• “Soil–Sediment–Water Systems”;
• “Land Socio-Economic and Political Issues”;
• “Urban Contexts and Urban–Rural Interactions”;
• “Land–Climate Interactions”;
• “Landscape Archaeology”;
• “Land, Biodiversity, and Human Wellbeing”;
• “Land Environmental and Policy Impact Assessment”;
• “Land Innovations—Data and Machine Learning”;
• “Water, Energy, Land and Food (WELF) Nexus”;
• “Land—Observation and Monitoring”;
• “Land Planning and Architecture”.

Land is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil–sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modelling and data processing, ecosystem services, and multifunctionality and sustainability etc., published monthly online by MDPI. The International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), European Land-use Institute (ELI), Landscape Institute (LI) and Urban Land Institute (ULI) are affiliated with Land, and their members receive a discount on the Article Processing Charge.

The main responsibilities of Editorial Board Members are as follows:

• Pre-checking and making decisions for several manuscripts, based on your area of expertise;
• Acting as, or recommending, a Guest Editor for a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests;
• Promoting Land and increasing its visibility on related academic social media.

The benefits of becoming an Editorial Board Member include the following:

• The opportunity to publish one paper, free of charge, per year in Land, as well as receiving certain discounts for papers invited from your scientific network;
• A certificate recognizing you as an Editorial Board Member of Land;
• Land may offer sponsorship for conferences organized by you;
• Land may offer travel grants of CHF 300–500 per year for conferences that you attend or organize.

To apply for this position (in one of our Sections), recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position.

Land Editorial Office

Land is currently recruiting Editors-in-Chief for the following Sections:

• “Soil–Sediment–Water Systems”;
• “Land Environmental and Policy Impact Assessment”;
• “Water, Energy, Land and Food (WELF) Nexus”.

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, IF: 3.905) is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil–sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modelling and data processing, ecosystem services, and multifunctionality and sustainability etc., published monthly online by MDPI. The International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), European Land-use Institute (ELI), Landscape Institute (LI) and Urban Land Institute (ULI) are affiliated with Land, and their members receive a discount on the Article Processing Charge.

The Section Editor-in-Chief is a leader in their particular field of research, and is responsible for maintaining the scientific quality of a particular section of a journal. The Section Editor-in-Chief is expected to oversee the growth and development of the journal Sections and its Board members. The initial term is for 2 years, which entails the following:

• Acting as an ambassador for the journal, MDPI and Open Access publishing;
• Making scientific decisions about the scope of their Section;
• Inviting distinguished scientists to join the Editorial Board;
• Suggesting topics for Special Issues;
• Providing support and guidance to Editorial Board Members and editorial staff when required;
• Maintaining oversight of the editorial process for individual manuscripts in their Section (mainly by making the final decision regarding whether or not a paper can be published after peer-review and revisions);
• Understanding, leading, and upholding MDPI’s peer review guidelines and ethics guidelines.

To apply for this position (in one of our Sections), recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position.

Land Editorial Office

Stanford University has recently published an update of the list of the top 2% most widely cited scientists. The time node of the statistical data of this list is from 1960 to 2022, and it is divided into two lists: "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" and "2022 Annual Scientific Influence Ranking". The "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" counts the comprehensive influence performance of scientists during their careers, and the "2022 Annual Influence Ranking" focuses on highlighting the academic influence of scientists in the previous year. This ranking, considered the most prestigious worldwide, is based on the bibliometric information contained in the Scopus database and includes more than 200,000 researchers from the more than 10 million scientists considered to be active worldwide, with 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields taken into account.

We are pleased to share that 85 Editorial Board Members from MDPI’s Land (ISSN: 2073-445X) were featured in Stanford University World’s Top 2% Scientists list in 2022.

The latest Stanford rankings reflect the significant influence and research excellence of the scientists, who are committed to furthering their knowledge for the benefit of the world.

We would like to congratulate our Editorial Board Members on their excellent achievement and thank them for their immense contribution to the scientific progression and development of Land.

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, IF 3.905) launched the “Land Systems and Global Change” Section in November 2019. Dr. Le Yu is currently serving as the Editor-in-Chief of this Section. This Section welcomes contributions concerning the functioning and dynamics of land systems from local to global scales.

We are pleased to present the Editor’s Choice Articles of the “Land Systems and Global Change” Section in 2020–2021, a snapshot of some of the most exciting work from the Section.

1. “Using a Social-ecological Regime Shift Approach to Understand the Transition from Livestock to Game Farming in the Eastern Cape, South Africa”
by Therezah Achieng, Kristine Maciejewski, Michelle Dyer and Reinette Biggs
Land 2020, 9(4), 97; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9040097
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/4/97

2. “Anthropogenic Biomes: 10,000 BCE to 2015 CE”
by Erle C. Ellis, Arthur H.W. Beusen and Kees Klein Goldewijk
Land 2020, 9(5), 129; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9050129
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/5/129

3. “Monitoring of Changes in Land Use/Land Cover in Syria from 2010 to 2018 Using Multitemporal Landsat Imagery and GIS”
by Mohamed Ali Mohamed, Julian Anders and Christoph Schneider
Land 2020, 9(7), 226; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9070226
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/7/226

4. “Aboveground Biomass Distribution in a Multi-Use Savannah Landscape in Southeastern Kenya: Impact of Land Use and Fences”
by Edward Amara, Hari Adhikari, Janne Heiskanen, Mika Siljander, Martha Munyao, Patrick Omond and Petri Pellikka
Land 2020, 9(10), 381; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9100381
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/10/381

5. “Toward Best Management Practices for Ecological Corridors”
by Andrew Gregory, Emma Spence, Paul Beier and Emily Garding
Land 2021, 10(2), 140; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10020140
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/2/140

6. “Land Abandonment in Mountain Areas of the EU: An Inevitable Side Effect of Farming Modernization and Neglected Threat to Sustainable Land Use”
by Thomas Dax, Karin Schroll, Ingrid Machold, Martyna Derszniak-Noirjean, Bernd Schuh and Mailin Gaupp-Berghausen
Land 2021, 10(6), 591; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10060591
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/6/591

7. “Multispectral Sentinel-2 and SAR Sentinel-1 Integration for Automatic Land Cover Classification”
by Paolo De Fioravante, Tania Luti, Alice Cavalli, Chiara Giuliani, Pasquale Dichicco, Marco Marchetti, Gherardo Chirici, Luca Congedo and Michele Munafò
Land 2021, 10(6), 611; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10060611
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/6/611

8. “A Synthesis of Land Use/Land Cover Studies: Definitions, Classification Systems, Meta-Studies, Challenges and Knowledge Gaps on a Global Landscape”
by Ryan Nedd, Katie Light, Marcia Owens, Neil James, Elijah Johnson and Aavudai Anandhi
Land 2021, 10(9), 994; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10090994
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/9/994

9. “Dynamic Amazonia: The EU–Mercosur Trade Agreement and Deforestation”
by Eugenio Arima, Paulo Barreto, Farzad Taheripour and Angel Aguiar
Land 2021, 10(11), 1243; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10111243
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/11/1243

Submitting a manuscript:

This Section is currently open for submissions. Papers may be submitted via the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload/?journal=land.

Launching a Special Issue:

You have the opportunity to propose hot topics and edit a Special Issue together with experts in the field: https://www.mdpi.com/journalproposal/sendproposalspecialissue/land.

Joining the Editorial Board:

If you are an active researcher in the field of land and are interested in joining the Editorial Board, please do not hesitate to contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position.

Land Editorial Office

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, Impact Factor 3.905) launched the Section “Landscape Ecology” in November 2019. Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard is currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of this Section.

The Section “Landscape Ecology” welcomes contributions concerning the dynamics of patterns and processes at landscape scales concerning any type of landscape, land use or land cover, including aquatic, coastal, and marine systems. Manuscripts can be theoretical, applied, or “state of the science” reviews but should explicitly address the spatial and/or temporal scale. Interdisciplinary manuscripts focusing on social–ecological systems, sustainability, or global change issues are particularly welcome, as are manuscripts from fields adjacent to landscape ecology, such as geography, macroecology, spatial science, and modeling.

We are pleased to present the Editor’s Choice Articles of Section “Landscape Ecology” in 2020 and 2021, a snapshot of some of the most exciting work from the Section.

1. “Contextualizing Landscape-Scale Forest Cover Loss in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 2000 and 2015”
by Giuseppe Molinario, Matthew Hansen, Peter Potapov, Alexandra Tyukavina and Stephen Stehman
Land 2020, 9(1), 23; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9010023
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/1/23

2. “Measuring Multifunctional Agricultural Landscapes”
by Bingjie Song, Guy M. Robinson and Douglas K. Bardsley
Land 2020, 9(8), 260; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9080260
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/8/260

3. “Local Perceptions of Ecosystem Services Across Multiple Ecosystem Types in Spain”
by Marina García-Llorente et al.
Land 2020, 9(9), 330; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9090330
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/9/330

4. “A Transparent and Intuitive Modeling Framework and Software for Efficient Land Allocation”
by John A. Gallo, Gregory H. Aplet, Randal Greene, Janice L. Thomson and Amanda T. Lombard
Land 2020, 9(11), 444; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9110444
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/11/444

5. “Cultural Ecosystem Services in the Natura 2000 Network: Introducing Proxy Indicators and Conflict Risk in Greece”
by Vassiliki Vlami, Ioannis P. Kokkoris, Stamatis Zogaris, George Kehayias and Panayotis Dimopoulos
Land 2021, 10(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10010004
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/1/4

6. “Remote Sensing Analysis to Quantify Change in Woodland Canopy Cover on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, Arizona, USA (1935 vs. 2017)”
by Barry Middleton and Laura Norman
Land 2021, 10(4), 393; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10040393
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/4/393

7. “Effects of Forestry Intensification and Conservation on Green Infrastructures: A Spatio-Temporal Evaluation in Sweden”
by Per Angelstam and Michael Manton
Land 2021, 10(5), 531; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10050531
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/5/531

8. “Plant Diversity in the Dynamic Mosaic Landscape of an Agricultural Heritage System: The Minabe-Tanabe Ume System”
by Yuji Hara, Shinji Oki, Yoshiyuki Uchiyama, Kyuichi Ito, Yuto Tani, Asako Naito and Yuki Sampei
Land 2021, 10(6), 559; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10060559
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/6/559

9. “Assessing the Role of Kettle Holes for Providing and Connecting Amphibian Habitats in Agricultural Landscapes”
by Biljana Savić, Alevtina Evgrafova, Cenk Donmez, Filip Vasić, Michael Glemnitz and Carsten Paul
Land 2021, 10(7), 692; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10070692
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/7/692

Submitting a manuscript:
This Section is currently open for submissions. Papers may be submitted via the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload/?journal=land.

Launching a Special Issue:
You have the opportunity to propose hot topics and edit a Special Issue together with experts in the field: https://www.mdpi.com/journalproposal/sendproposalspecialissue/land.

Joining the Editorial Board:

If you are an active researcher in the field of land and are interested in joining the Editorial Board, please do not hesitate to contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position.

Land Editorial Office

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, IF: 3.905) launched the “Urban Contexts and Urban-Rural Interactions” Section in November 2019. Prof. Dr. Dagmar Haase is now serving as the Section Editor-in-Chief. This Section welcomes contributions concerning both patterns and processes in urban landscapes and cities, as well as along the urban-rural gradient.

The Section is open to submissions dealing with urban land-use change, urbanization impacts on ecosystems and their services in cities, the future of peri-urbanization, the urban heat island, biodiversity aspects, wildlife and nature conservation in urban ecosystems and along urban boundaries, urban planning and governance of green infrastructure and nature-based solutions, sustainable cities, and the role of big data in urban social-ecological land research.

We are pleased to present the Editor’s Choice Articles of the Section “Urban Contexts and Urban-Rural Interactions” in 2020–2021, a carefully curated list of high-quality articles listed below:

1. “The Potential Supply and Demand of Farmers' Land Contract Rights Based on 697 Households in Four Provinces of China”
by Wujing Wang and Xingqing Ye
Land 2020, 9(3), 80; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9030080
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/3/80

2. “Effects of Urbanization on Farmland Size and Diversified Farm Activities in Japan: an Analysis Based on the Land Parcel Database”
by Shingo Yoshida
Land 2020, 9(9), 315; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9090315
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/9/315

3. “Ejidos, Urbanization, and the Production of Inequality in Formerly Agricultural Lands, Guadalajara, Mexico, 1975-2020”
by Leonardo Barleta, Mateo Carrillo, Zephyr Frank and Erik Steiner
Land 2020, 9(12), 526; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9120526
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/12/526

4. “A Review of Urban Ecosystem Services Research in Southeast Asia”
by Karen T. Lourdes, Chris N. Gibbins, Perrine Hamel, Ruzana Sanusi, Badrul Azhar and Alex M. Lechner
Land 2021, 10(1), 40; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10010040
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/1/40

5. “Linking Urban Tree Cover Change and Local History in a Post-Industrial City”
by Lara A. Roman, Indigo J. Catton, Eric J. Greenfield, Hamil Pearsall, Theodore S. Eisenman and Jason G. Henning
Land 2021, 10(4), 403; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10040403
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/4/403

6. “Ecological Connectivity in Agricultural Green Infrastructure: Suggested Criteria for Fine Scale Assessment and Planning”
by Simone Valeri, Laura Zavattero and Giulia Capotorti
Land 2021, 10(8), 807; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10080807
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/8/807

7. “Urban Naturalization For Green Spaces Using Soil Tillage, Herbicide Application, Compost Amendment And Native Vegetation”
by Jaime Aguilar Rojas, Amalesh Dhar and M. Anne Naeth
Land 2021, 10(8), 854; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10080854
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/8/854

8. “Research on Tourism, Indigenous Peoples and Economic Development: A Missing Component”
by Richard Butler
Land 2021, 10(12), 1329; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10121329
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/12/1329

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the research groups that submitted to Land (ISSN: 2073-445X). We would appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues and network. Furthermore, the following opportunities for collaboration may be of interest:

Submitting a manuscript:
This Section is currently open for submissions. Papers may be submitted via the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload/?journal=land.

Launching a Special Issue:
You have the opportunity to propose hot topics and edit a Special Issue together with experts in the field: https://www.mdpi.com/journalproposal/sendproposalspecialissue/land.

Joining the Editorial Board:
If you are an active researcher in the field of land and are interested in joining the Editorial Board, please do not hesitate to contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) with the following two files provided:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest in and enthusiasm for the position.

Land Editorial Office

We are pleased to announce that twenty-four new scholars have recently been appointed Editorial Board Members (EBMs) of the journal Land (ISSN: 2073-445X).

 Further details about the Editorial Board can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/editors. 

We wish them every success in both their research and in the development of the journal. 

Additionally, Land is recruiting prestigious scholars from around the world to join our Editorial Board. To apply for this position, recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest in and enthusiasm for the position. 

Land Editorial Office

Peer Review Week began 19 September 2022 under the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research”. Through various blog articles, podcast, and webinar, we discussed this crucial subject throughout the week, celebrating the essential role peer review plays in maintaining research quality.

To begin, we held a Webinar on the topic. Professor Peter W. Choate and Dr. Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi joined Dr. Ioana Craciun, one of MDPI’s scientific officers, for an in-depth discussion.

We invite you to view the event recording:

During the week, the MDPI Blog in a series articles highlighted how good Peer Review safeguards research integrity. The following topics were covered:

• Peer Review Week 2022
• Research Integrity
• What We’ve Learned About Peer Review Reports
• 4 Steps to the Perfect Peer Review Report
• How to Write the Perfect Peer Review Report: An Interview
• Inviting Great Peer Reviewers

In a new edition of Insight Faster, an MDPI podcast, we were delighted to talk to the co-chairs of the Peer Review Week committee, Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement for CACTUS) and Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) to get their take on this year’s event and its related topics.

You can find the Podcast here.

We hope you enjoy the contents!

MDPI will be attending the AGU Fall Meeting 2022 (AGU22), held in Chicago and online, from 12 to 16 December 2022. The AGU Fall Meeting is the most influential event in the world dedicated to the advancement of Earth and space sciences. The conference unites the Earth and space science community to share findings, connect like-minded scientists from around the world, and advance our profession and shared passion for the impact of science. Researchers, scientists, educators, students, policymakers, enthusiasts, journalists, and communicators attend the AGU Fall Meeting to better understand our planet and environment, and our role in preserving its future.

During this conference, MDPI (at booth #1452) will welcome researchers from different backgrounds to visit and share their latest views and research with us.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Water (leading journal);
• Remote Sensing (leading journal);
• Geosciences;
• Climate;
• Hydrology;
• Land;
• Drones;
• Environments;
• Sustainability;
• IJERPH;
• Earth;
• Fire;
• GeoHazards;
• Oceans;
• World.

If you plan on attending this conference, feel free to stop by our booth at #1452. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have.

For more information about the conference, please see the following link: https://igs.org/event/agu22/.

The 2021 citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and we’re pleased to announce the following results for MDPI journals:

For more information on Impact Factors and what it means to index academic journals, please visit our related blog posts.

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2022

Source: 2021 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ^TM (Clarivate, 2022)

MDPI’s Young Investigator Awards recognize promising junior researchers, acknowledge their contributions, and enhance communication among scientists. We are proud to present the winners for the year 2021 in the “Environmental & Earth Sciences” category. The winners were selected by the journals’ editors.

We warmly congratulate the awarded young investigators for their outstanding contributions. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Atmosphere:

• Shaojie Song, Harvard University, USA

Clean Technologies:

• Francesco Galiano, Institute on Membrane Technology of the National Research Council, Italy

Energies:

• Qilin Wang, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
• Christopher H. T. Lee, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

• Grace Vincent, Central Queensland University, Australia

Minerals:

• Antony Burnham, Australian National University, Australia

Remote Sensing:

• Celso Henrique Leite Silva Junior, National Institute for Space Research – INPE, Brasil; Agricultural Engineering Department of the State University of Maranhão – UEMA, Brazil

Sustainability:

• Baojie He, Chongqing University, China

Water:

• Stefanos Giannakis, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain

In order to acknowledge our reviewers, who so generously dedicate their time to reviewing papers and demonstrate diligence, professionalism, and timeliness when reviewing manuscripts, MDPI journals regularly offer outstanding reviewer awards to scholars who participate in the peer-review process.

We are proud to recognize winners for the year 2021 in the “Environmental & Earth Sciences” category for their outstanding contributions among extensive competition by presenting them with an Outstanding Reviewer Award.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the winners on their achievement. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Atmosphere:

• Hristo Chervenkov, National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, Bulgaria
• Jouni Räisänen, University of Helsinki, Finland

Climate:

• Piotr F. Borowski, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland

Energies:

• Elena Lucchi, Institute for Renewable Energy, Italy
• Marcin Dębowski, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland
• Miroslav Variny, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia
• Piotr F. Borowski, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland
• Vedran Mrzljak, University of Rijeka, Croatia

Forests:

• Tomasz Oszako, Forest Research Institute, Poland
• Stelian Alexandru Borz, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
• Maricar Aguilos, North Carolina State University, USA
• Narayan Bhusal, Seoul National University, South Korea

Geosciences:

• Dave Waters, University of Oxford, UK

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

• Anuli Njoku, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
• Haruna Musa Moda, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
• Jesús Molina-Mula, University of BalearicIsland, Spain
• Katharina Diehl, Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
• Katarzyna Tomaszek, Pedagogical University of Kracow, Poland
• Matteo Nioi, University of Cagliari, Italy
• Pablo A. Cantero-Garlito, Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, Spain
• Seoyong Kim, Ajou University, South Korea
• Andrzej Adamski, University of Information Technology and Management, Poland
• Adrian Curto, Faculty of Medicine, University of Salamanca, Spain
• Arkaitz Castañeda Babarro, University of Deusto, Spain
• Álvaro Francisco Lopes De Sousa, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
• Agata Gabryelska, Medical University of Lodz, Poland
• Ana Reyes Menéndez, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain
• Bartosz Dalewski, Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Poland
• Chong Chen, Yamaguchi University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan
• Carla Maria Batista Ferreira Pires, CBIOS-Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias-Escola de Ciências e Tecnologias da Saúde, Portugal
• Claudia Pisanu, University of Cagliari, Italy
• Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, USA
• Faisal F. Hakeem, King’s College London, UK
• Francisco Javier Fernández Carrasco, Punta de Europa Hospital, Spain
• Haewon Byeon, Inje University, South Korea
• HuiJun Chih, Curtin University, Australia
• Jerónimo Aragón Vela, University of Granada, Spain
• Joana Costa, University of Aveiro, Portugal,
• Joanne Lloyd, University of Wolverhampton, UK
• José Luis Romero-Bejar, University of Granada, Spain
• Laura Nathans, Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State Scranton, USA
• Mateusz Jankowski, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education, Poland
• Matteo Riccò, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Italy
• Nicola Döring, Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany
• Nora Suleiman-Martos, University of Granada, Spain
• Russell Kabir, Anglia Ruskin University, UK
• Roy McConkey, University of Ulster, UK
• Sunhee Kim, Ajou University, South Korea
• Sol García-Germán, Centro de Estudios e Investigación para la Gestión de Riesgos Agrarios y Medioambientalesdisabled, Spain
• Sebastian Rutkowski, Opole University of Technology, Poland
• Tamás Berki, University of Szeged, Hungary
• Terence Moriarty, University of Northern Iowa, USA
• Pedro Antonio Martín Cervantes, University of Almería, La Cañada de San Urbano, Spain

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information:

• Lemenkova Polina, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Andrew Newton, Nottingham Trent University, UK
• Dennis Edler, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
• Lukáš Herman, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
• Marcela Bindzarova Gergelova, Technical University of Kosice, Slovakia

Land:

• Rahul Datta, Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic
• Dirk H.R. Spennemann, Charles Sturt University, Australia
• Raimundo Jimenez-Ballesta, (Retired recently) Autonoma University of Madrid, Spain

Remote Sensing:

• Veraldo Liesenberg, Santa Catarina State University, Brazil
• Yady Tatiana Solano-Correa, University of Cauca, Colombia
• Francesco Marinello, University of Padova, Italy
• Pedro Melo-Pinto, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal
• Ignacio Bosch, Universitat Politènica de València, Spain
• Juan Soria, University of Valencia, Spain
• Chiman Kwan, Signal Processing, Inc., USA
• Benoit Vozel, University of Rennes, France
• Giuseppe Casula, National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology Unit of Bologna, Italy
• Simone Cosoli, The University of Western Australia, Australia

Resources:

• Maria Economou-Eliopoulos, University of Athens, Greece

Toxics:

• Cynthia Rider, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, USA

We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2021 Travel Awards in the “Environmental & Earth Sciences” category for their outstanding presentations and to present them with the prize.

MDPI journals regularly offer travel awards to encourage talented junior scientists to present their latest research at academic conferences in specific fields, which helps to increase their influence.

The winners mentioned below were carefully selected by the journal editors based on an outline of their research and the work to be presented at an academic conference.

We would like to warmly congratulate the Travel Awards winners for the year 2021 and wish them the greatest success with their future research endeavors. MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Atmosphere:

• Charbel Harb, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, USA
• Jibran Khan, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark

Climate:

• Agostino Niyonkuru Meroni, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
• Platon Patlakas, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Energies:

• Nnaemeka Vincent Emodi, University of Tasmania, Australia
• Irene Poza-Casado, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain

Forests:

• Pipiet Larasatie, Oregon State University, USA
• Tania L. Maxwell, French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), France

Hydrology:

• Georgia Papacharalampous, Roma Tre University, Italy
• Mattei Alexandra, University of Corsica, France

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

• Danila Azzolina, University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy
• Kelvin Fong, Yale University, USA
• Levi Frehlich, University of Calgary, Canada‎
• Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, Imperial College London, UK

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information:

• Junghwan Kim, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
• Xuke Hu, Institute of Data Science, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany

Land:

• Álvaro Castilla Beltrán, University of La Laguna, Spain
• Lauren Nerfa, University of Hawaiʻi, USA

Remote Sensing:

• Amen Al-Yaari, Sorbonne University, France
• Meng Lu, Utrecht University, Netherlands

Resources:

• Alessandro Lenci, University of Bologna, Italy
• Evangelia Georgantzia, Liverpool John Moores University, UK

Sustainability:

• Sayyed Rasoul Khayyam Nekouei, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia
• Georgia A. Papacharalampous, Roma Tre University, Italy
• Raquel Filipa da Costa Viveiros, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal
• Rajesh Pathak, South Dakota State University, USA

Water:

• Nnanake-Abasi Okon Offiong, University of Uyo, Nigeria
• Tonni Agustiono Kurniawan, Polytechnic of Health, Indonesia
• Shawna Andrea Foo, Arizona State University, USA

The purpose of our Best Paper Awards is to promote and recognize the most impactful contributions published within MDPI journals.

The editors of each journal carefully selected reviews and research papers through a rigorous judging process based on criteria such as the scientific merit, overall impact, and the quality of presentation of the papers published in the journal last year.

We are honored to present the winners in the subject areas of “Environmental & Earth Sciences”, who were selected amongst extensive competition, and congratulate the authors for their outstanding scientific publications.

MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Geosciences:

• “Distinguishing between Deep-Water Sediment Facies: Turbidites, Contourites and Hemipelagites”
  by Dorrik Stow and Zeinab Smillie
  Geosciences 2020, 10(2), 68. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences10020068
• “Review of Explosive Hydrovolcanism”
  by Károly Németh and Szabolcs Kósiks
  Geosciences 2020, 10(2), 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences10020044

Remote Sensing:

• “A Review on Deep Learning Techniques for 3D Sensed Data Classification”
  by David Griffiths and Jan Boehm
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(12), 1499. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11121499
• “Satellite Remote Sensing of Precipitation and the Terrestrial Water Cycle in a Changing Climate”
  by Vincenzo Levizzani and Elsa Cattani
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(19), 2301. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11192301
• “Evaluation of Different Machine Learning Methods and Deep-Learning Convolutional Neural Networks for Landslide Detection”
  by Omid Ghorbanzadeh, Thomas Blaschke, Khalil Gholamnia, Sansar Raj Meena, Dirk Tiede and Jagannath Aryal
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 196. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020196
• “An Integrated View of Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Changes Based on Models and Satellite Observations”
  by Ruth Mottram, Sebastian B. Simonsen, Synne Høyer Svendsen, Valentina R. Barletta, Louise Sandberg Sørensen, Thomas Nagler, Jan Wuite, Andreas Groh, Martin Horwath, Job Rosier, Anne Solgaard, Christine S. Hvidberg and Rene Forsberg
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(12), 1407. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11121407
• “UAV-Based High Resolution Thermal Imaging for Vegetation Monitoring, and Plant Phenotyping Using ICI 8640 P, FLIR Vue Pro R 640, and thermoMap Cameras”
  by Vasit Sagan, Maitiniyazi Maimaitijiang, Paheding Sidike, Kevin Eblimit, Kyle T. Peterson, Sean Hartling, Flavio Esposito, Kapil Khanal, Maria Newcomb, Duke Pauli, Rick Ward, Felix Fritschi, Nadia Shakoor and Todd Mockler
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(3), 330. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11030330

Toxics:

• “A Review of Biomonitoring of Phthalate Exposures”
  by Wang, Yu, Hongkai Zhu and Kurunthachalam Kannan
  Toxics 2019, 7(2), 21; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics7020021
• “Trace Element Uptake by Herbaceous Plants from the Soils at a Multiple Trace Element-Contaminated Site”
  by Nworie, Obinna E., Junhao Qin and Chuxia Lin
  Toxics 2019, 7(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics7010003

Water:

• “Water Quality Indices: Challenges and Application Limits in the Literature”
  by Moez Kachroud, Fabienne Trolard, Mohamed Kefi, Sihem Jebari and Guilhem Bourrié
  Water 2019, 11(2), 361. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11020361
• “A Brief Review of Random Forests for Water Scientists and Practitioners and Their Recent History in Water Resources”
  by Hristos Tyralis, Georgia Papacharalampous and Andreas Langousis
  Water 2019, 11(5), 910. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11050910
• “The Use of Non-Conventional Water Resources as a Means of Adaptation to Drought and Climate Change in Semi-Arid Regions: South-Eastern Spain”
  by Álvaro-Francisco Morote, Jorge Olcina and María Hernández
  Water 2019, 11(1), 93. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11010093
• “Hydrological Effectiveness of an Extensive Green Roof in Mediterranean Climate” 
  by Stefania Anna Palermo, Michele Turco, Francesca Principato and Patrizia Piro
  Water 2019, 11(7), 1378. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11071378
• “Forecasting Groundwater Table in a Flood Prone Coastal City with Long Short-term Memory and Recurrent Neural Networks”
  by Benjamin D. Bowes, Jeffrey M. Sadler, Mohamed M. Morsy, Madhur Behl and Jonathan L. Goodall
  Water 2019, 11(5), 1098. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11051098
• “Effectiveness of Rainwater Harvesting Systems for Flood Reduction in Residential Urban Areas”
  by Gabriele Frenib and Lorena Liuzzo
  Water 2019, 11(7), 1389. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11071389

The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Landscape Ecology” in Land (ISSN 2073-445X, IF 3.398).

Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard is a Full Professor of Physical Geography and a Director at the Institute of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology at Leibniz University, Hannover. He is a geographer with a Ph.D. in ecology and is involved in many international and national projects, research initiatives and networks. His main research focus is on landscape ecology, mapping of ecosystem service supply and demand, and applications in environmental management. He is Co-Chair at the Ecosystem Services Partnership ESP and Vice President of the International Association of Landscape Ecology IALE.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard, who shared his vision for the Section with us as well as his views on the research area:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?
I like the open access strategy of the journal, relatively modest pricing and comparably quick article processing times.

2. What is your vision for the Section?
To be attractive for contributions from traditional as well as modern fields of landscape ecological research that deal with urgent questions of human–environmental interactions.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like, in your view?
Landscape ecology is a very traditional field of science, and relevant knowledge on the subject is urgently needed in times of increasing environmental problems and landscape degradation. Here, I think emerging transdisciplinary approaches and modern methods such as modelling, spatial sciences and big data analyses will increasingly push landscape ecology forward.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?
Open Access is urgently needed in order to make scientific outcomes available to anyone who is interested. Article Processing Charges need to be affordable for people from all countries while covering the publishers’ expenses.

5. Who should contribute to this Section?
Anyone dealing with landscapes, no matter the scales or types they are interested in.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard as the Section Editor-in-Chief of “Landscape Ecology”, and we look forward to achieving many milestones under his leadership.

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X) is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil–sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modeling and data processing, ecosystem services, multifunctionality and sustainability, etc., published monthly online by MDPI. It is the only open access journal covering all aspects of land science, indexed within Scopus, SSCI (Web of Science), AGRICOLA, AGRIS, GeoRef, RePEc, and many other databases. Land has received an increased CiteScore (2020 Scopus data) of 3.0, and its 2020 Impact Factor is 3.398.

Land’s new Section “Land Innovations—Data and Machine Learning” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/sections/land_innovations_data_machine_learning) is now recruiting Editorial Board Members.

The main responsibilities of the Section Editorial Board Members are as follows:

• Pre-screening and making decisions on new submissions related to the journal Section;
• Helping to edit a Special Issue on a topic related to the Section (or supervising Special Issues related to your research field);
• Providing input or feedback regarding journal policies;
• Helping to promote the journal among peers or at conferences;
• Attending Board Meetings to suggest journal development strategies;
• Reviewing manuscripts.

This position is open to experts in all aspects of data science related to land. To apply for this position, recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) or Vivi Wang (vivi.wang@mdpi.com).

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Francesca Cigna has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the newly established Section “Landscape Archaeology” in Land (ISSN 2073-445X, IF 3.398).

Dr. Francesca Cigna, an environmental engineer with a Ph.D. in Earth sciences, is a senior researcher in Earth observation at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Research Council of Italy. She has extensive experience in satellite remote sensing, GIS, radar image processing, change detection methods and big data analytics. Her main research areas of investigation are mapping and monitoring natural and anthropogenic hazards in urban and rural environments, ground instability, land changes, landscape archaeology and cultural heritage applications.

The following is a short Q&A with Dr. Francesca Cigna, who shared her vision for the Section with us, as well as her views of the research area:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?

Since its launch in 2012, Land has rapidly demonstrated that there is an active and vibrant research community working on a broad range of topics related to land systems and landscapes, yet not so many international journals offer a valuable outlet to publishing these topics through an efficient peer-reviewing and editorial process. Reputation and impact of Land have grown over the past years, enabling a high positioning of the journal within the Environmental Science subject area. The journal therefore offers a good environment to collect high quality studies and discussions in the field, and there is no doubt that this represents a stimulating opportunity for me to contribute to the journal’s goals and objectives as the Editor-in-Chief of one of its thematic Sections.

2. Can you briefly introduce your current research work in landscape archaeology?

As an Earth observation scientist, I look at the topic from a technical perspective, trying to investigate how remote sensing data, image analysis methodologies and digital technologies can address scientific questions and research goals by providing valuable information on characteristics and evolution of past archaeological landscapes, from the regional to the more local scale. Big data, enhanced imaging resolutions, open access archives and cloud platforms are the resources that I exploit the most in this field, with a look to investigating semi-arid regions and catchments in South America and human-impacted Mediterranean landscapes and sites in the current context of urbanization and anthropogenic site disturbance.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?

The future of this research field looks like a lot of fun! Whilst we will surely continue to use well-established on-site surveying and investigation methods, technological development will continue to enable an increasing number of new opportunities, in terms of both data acquisition instrumentation types and sensing capabilities, and novel approaches for semi-automated data classification, machine and deep learning, artificial intelligence and advanced digital technologies. Curiosity and research questions will lead the way in the upcoming years, with the community making the best out of novel data and methods to address fundamental and new questions with original, prototyping and pioneering approaches and workflows.

4. What is your vision for the Section?

In my vision, the launch of this new Section of Land, fully dedicated to landscape archaeology, is the first step towards the consolidation of this research field with a body of high-impact literature that will also contribute to an even brighter future for the journal more widely. I am keen to open the doors of the Section to highly motivated early career scientists and young researchers to contribute as authors and/or editors (e.g., through the Special Issue Mentor Program) to enable the development and embedding of novel ideas and the launch of new thematic volumes on “hot topics” and recent discoveries.

5. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?

Nowadays, Open Access principles and practices are among the most welcomed features in scientific publishing. As an author, I have experienced a much wider dissemination and often higher impact of my open access research papers across the community, even reaching out to practitioners and specialists outside the university or major research institutions who might not have access to journal subscriptions. Further development of the principles of Open Access in this field will likely stimulate faster and more widespread scientific exchange and development.

We warmly welcome Dr. Francesca Cigna to her new role as Section Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to her leading Land to many more milestones.

In February 2022, the Urban Land Institute (ULI) chose Land (ISSN: 2073-445X) as its preferred journal and became an affiliated society member. As part of this collaboration, all members of ULI will benefit a discount on the article processing charge (APC) when submitting articles to Land.

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) is a professional organization whose functions are highly relevant to the scope of Land.

We look forward to collaborating with ULI and publishing state-of-the-art research from its members in this field.

Land is currently recruiting Editors-in-Chief for the following sections:

• “Soil–Sediment–Water Systems”;
• “Land Environmental and Policy Impact Assessment”;
• “Water, Energy, Land and Food (WELF) Nexus”;
• “Land—Observation and Monitoring”.

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, Impact Factor 3.398) is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil–sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modelling and data processing, ecosystem services, and multifunctionality and sustainability etc., published monthly online by MDPI. The International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), European Land-use Institute (ELI), Landscape Institute (LI) and Urban Land Institute (ULI) are affiliated with Land, and their members receive a discount on the article processing charge.

The Section Editor-in-Chief is a leader in their particular field of research, and is responsible for maintaining the scientific quality of a particular section of a journal. The Section Editor-in-Chief is expected to oversee the growth and development of the journal Sections and its board members. The initial term is for 2 years, which entails the following:

• Acting as an ambassador for the journal, MDPI and Open Access publishing;
• Making scientific decisions about the scope of their Section;
• Inviting distinguished scientists to join the Editorial Board;
• Suggesting topics for Special Issues;
• Providing support and guidance to Editorial Board Members and editorial staff when required;
• Maintaining oversight of the editorial process for individual manuscripts in their Section (mainly by making the final decision regarding whether or not a paper can be published after peer-review and revisions);
• Understanding, leading and upholding MDPI’s peer review guidelines and ethics guidelines.

To apply for this position (in one of our sections), recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position.

Land Editorial Office

Land is currently recruiting prestigious scholars from around the world to join our Editorial Board for the following 13 Sections:

• “Land Systems and Global Change”;
• “Landscape Ecology”;
• “Soil–Sediment–Water Systems”;
• “Land Socio-Economic and Political Issues”;
• “Urban Contexts and Urban–Rural Interactions”;
• “Land–Climate Interactions”;
• “Landscape Archaeology”;
• “Land, Biodiversity, and Human Wellbeing”;
• “Land Environmental and Policy Impact Assessment”;
• “Land Innovations—Data and Machine Learning”;
• “Water, Energy, Land and Food (WELF) Nexus”;
• “Land—Observation and Monitoring”;
• “Land Planning and Architecture”.

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, Impact Factor 3.398) is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil–sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modelling and data processing, ecosystem services, and multifunctionality and sustainability etc., published monthly online by MDPI. The International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), European Land-use Institute (ELI), Landscape Institute (LI) and Urban Land Institute (ULI) are affiliated with Land, and their members receive a discount on the article processing charge.

The main responsibilities of Editorial Board Members are as follows:

• Pre-checking and making decisions for several manuscripts, based on your area of expertise;
• Acting as, or recommending, a Guest Editor for a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests;
• Promoting Land and increasing its visibility on related academic social media.

The benefits of becoming an Editorial Board Member (EBM) include the following:

• The opportunity to publish one paper, free of charge, per year in Land, as well as receiving certain discounts for papers invited from your scientific network;
• A certificate recognizing you as an Editorial Board Member of Land;
• Land may offer sponsorship for conferences organized by you;
• Land may offer travel grants of CHF 300–500 per year for conferences that you attend or organize.

To apply for this position (in one of our sections), recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position.

Land Editorial Office

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X) is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil–sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modelling and data processing, ecosystem services, and multifunctionality and sustainability etc., published monthly online by MDPI. It is the only open access journal covering all aspects of land science, indexed within Scopus, SSCI (Web of Science), AGRICOLA, AGRIS, GeoRef, RePEc, and many other databases. Land has received an increased CiteScore (2020 Scopus data) of 3.0, and its 2020 Impact Factor is 3.398.

Land’s new Section “Landscape Archaeology” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/sections/landscape_archaeology) is now recruiting Editorial Board Members.

The main responsibilities of the Section Editorial Board Members are as follows:

• Supervising the quality of the papers in this Section (reviewing new submissions);
• Acting as a/recommending Guest Editors for a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests;
• Providing conference/society cooperation recommendations;
• Helping to promote this Section among your peers or at conferences.

Applications for the position should include (i) a brief cover letter and (ii) a short CV outlining the candidate’s track record in publishing, peer reviewing, and editing in scientific journals and links to ORCID, Publons, Scopus, SciProfiles, and/or Google Scholar profiles.

This position is open to experts in any aspect of landscape archaeology. To apply for this position, recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) or Carol Ma (carol.ma@mdpi.com).

The journal Land (ISSN 2073-445X) is launching a new position: Topical Advisory Panel Member. The main responsibility of the new members of the Topical Advisory Panel is to regularly provide support to Guest Editors, Topic Editors, and Section Board Members. The responsibilities of the Topical Advisory Panel Members are available here: https://www.mdpi.com/editors.

Land is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil–sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modelling and data processing, ecosystem services, and multifunctionality and sustainability, etc., published monthly online by MDPI. The International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), European Land-use Institute (ELI), and Landscape Institute (LI) are affiliated with Land. The aims and scope of the journal can be found at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/about.

Each year, the members’ performance is evaluated and outstanding members will be promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief.

To qualify as a Topical Advisory Panel Member, applicants must:

• Have expertise and experience in the field related to the journal;
• Be within approximately 10 years of receiving a Ph.D.;
• Have at least 6-8 published papers in the last 5 years as first author or corresponding author;
• Currently hold an independent research position in academia or a government institute.

If you are interested in this position, please apply via the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/topical_advisory_panel_application, or send an email to land@mdpi.com with your academic CV.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X) is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil–sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modelling and data processing, ecosystem services, and multifunctionality and sustainability etc., published monthly online by MDPI. It is the only open access journal covering all aspects of land science, indexed within Scopus, SSCI (Web of Science), AGRICOLA, AGRIS, GeoRef, RePEc, and many other databases. Land has received an increased CiteScore (2020 Scopus data) of 3.0, and its 2020 Impact Factor is 3.398.

Land’s new Section “Land, Biodiversity, and Human Wellbeing” is now recruiting Editorial Board Members. This Section will highlight the land–biodiversity–human wellbeing nexus with respect to its trends, compromises, and controversies. You can find more information on the Section webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/sections/land_biodiversity_human_wellbeing.

The main responsibilities of Section Editorial Board Members are as follows:

• Pre-screening and making decisions on new submissions related to the journal Section;
• Assisting in editing a Special Issue on a topic related to the Section (or supervising Special Issues related to your research field);
• Providing input or feedback regarding journal policies;
• Helping to promote the journal among their peers or at conferences;
• Attending board meetings to develop journal development strategies;
• Reviewing manuscripts.

This position is open to active experts who are passionate about this field. To apply for the position, recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please do not hesitate to contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) or Erin Li (erin.li@mdpi.com).

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Sean Sloan has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the newly established Section “Land, Biodiversity, and Human Wellbeing” in Land (ISSN 2073-445X, IF 3.398).

Dr. Sean Sloan is a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in the Human Dimensions of Sustainability and Resilience and Professor of Geography at Vancouver Island University, Canada. His research interests encompass emergent trends to land management/change in the Global South, particularly with respect to the human dimensions of forest change, wildfires, and agriculture. Formally, Dr. Sloan was a Research Fellow at James Cook University, Australia, where his research extended to biological conservation amidst rapid road infrastructure development and related land exploitation.

The following is a short Q&A with Dr. Sean Sloan, who shared his vision for the Section with us, as well as his views of the research area:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?

In my view, Land has served as a niche outlet for exploratory research often produced by emergent scholars, including junior scientists, those in the Global South, and/or other typically under-represented demographics. When carefully vetted and cultivated, studies from such scholars can often be visionary and exciting. I have always enjoyed bringing out the best of such studies. I now look forward to doing so formally as Section Editor-in-Chief.

2. What is your vision for the Section?

While cliché, it is true that we live in unprecedented times in many respects, in degree if not in kind. The impacts of unfolding land-change dynamics are arguably more cumulative than ever, or at least felt more widely in terms of individual and societal wellbeing, broadly defined. This Section, therefore, seeks to compile scientific studies and informed commentaries on the implications of land change and/or related biodiversity fluxes for human wellbeing, as with respect to physical, mental, and spiritual health but also notions of social and environmental security, resilience, prosperity, and peace.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?

To date, the field has been both piecemeal (e.g., local case studies) or all-encompassing (e.g., global meta-analyses). Each approach has struggled to explicitly highlight and/or generalise the “connective tissue” between actual land management, actual biodiversity change, and actual human wellbeing. The promise of the field, and this Section, is in doing just this.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?

I have always held Open Access publication as necessary for a globalized world in which much scientific research is publicly funded, but where access to educational resources including publications remains highly uneven. The Open Access model provides unparalleled access to scientific knowledge amongst scholars and practitioners, particularly in the Global South, where journal subscriptions are very limited. Ultimately, the model contributes to greater knowledge dissemination and related applications, perhaps especially where they are most needed. In short, the model is both scientifically utilitarian and publicly virtuous.

5. Who should contribute to this Section, and what can readers expect?

Contributions are welcome from all keen observers of the nexus of land management, biodiversity, and human wellbeing. These include professional scientists but also informed practitioners of land management, conservation, health, etc., as well as stakeholders dealing with changes to this nexus.

We warmly welcome Dr. Sean Sloan to his new role as Section Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to his leading Land to many more milestones.

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Chuanrong (Cindy) Zhang has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the newly established Section “Land Innovations – Data and Machine Learning” in Land (ISSN 2073-445X, IF 3.398).

Prof. Dr. Chuanrong (Cindy) Zhang received the Ph.D. in geography from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in 2004. She is currently a professor at the Department of Geography & Center of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs. Prof. Dr. Zhang is a broadly trained geographer with substantive interests in geospatial technologies. Her research is interdisciplinary. In particular, her research concentrates on geographical information science (GIS), remote sensing, geo-spatial statistics, geocomputation, GIS cyberinfrastructure, and their applications in land-use/cover studies, climate change, managing disasters and natural resources, landscape ecology, environmental planning, as well as transportation studies. She has published articles in leading journals on GIS, geography, remote sensing, soil, and environmental studies. She has published more than 150 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings since 2003. She published her monograph titled Geospatial Semantic Web as the first author with Springer in 2015. Her work has been supported by different prestigious agents such as the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. She has served as the committee chair or member for several international or national organizations in the geospatial community such as the AAG (Association of American Geographers), CPGIS (The International Association of Chinese Professionals in GIS), and UCGIS (University Consortium for Geographic Information Science). She received the UCGIS/ESRI (University Consortium for Geographic Information Science/Environmental Systems Research Institute) Junior Faculty Award in 2009 and became an NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) CyberGIS Fellow in 2014.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Chuanrong Zhang, who shared her vision for the Section with us as well as her views of the research area:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take on the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?

Many of the central challenges of the 21st century are tied to our land. For example, receding glaciers, loss of species’ habitats, growing inequalities, resource depletion, population migration, rising disasters, and climate change. Land is the journal in which to publish important interdisciplinary research on land, which has the potential to contribute greatly to efforts to solve these challenges. The journal has gained more attention in various fields and has had a growing impact across the sciences in recent years. As a geographer, I have research interests in common with the journal. My recent research focuses on investigating new technologies in GIS, remote sensing, and spatial statistics to process, analyze, and represent geographical data, which match the aims and scope of the journal well.

2. What is your vision for the Section?

The “Land Innovations – Data and Machine Learning” Section includes, but is not limited to, frontiers of research in spatial data science for obtaining, processing, analyzing, harnessing, and visualizing social, economic, environmental, and other data related to Land. Geospatial artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques for dealing with spatial big data, including remotely sensed data and social media data, are particularly welcome.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?

The future of research on land data and machine learning is exciting. The future of research will move beyond proof-of-concept demonstrations and applications of big data and machine learning techniques. The future of research may involve investigations that draw on diverse perspectives and different types of data as well as emphasize integrated approaches and model-driven data analytics approaches, which are important in addressing many research problems and may promote large-scale collaborations.

4. What do you think of the development of open access in the publishing field?

As the Internet has enabled low-cost distribution of digital content, the development of open access will probably gain increasing acceptance and become more popular in the future. More and more journals will become open access journals.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Chuanrong Zhang to her new role as Section Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to her leading Land to many more milestones.

At the end of October 2021, the citation metrics of Journal Citation Reports (JCR, https://jcr.help.clarivate.com/Content/data-updates.htm) were updated, in order to fix the problems associated with missing material, as well as to fix other small errors. Based on the new metrics, Land received a new IF of 3.398, which is a slight increase from the previous IF of 3.395.

The newest journal ranking in the corresponding categories is shown below.

For more journal statistics, please visit https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/stats.

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members and Editors in MDPI's journals who have been distinguished as 2021 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We herewith express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to make on scientific progress and on our journals' development.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

The full list of 2021 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed at the following webpage in the Web of Science^TM https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

The Landscape Institute (LI) Awards 2021 online ceremony will be held on 25 November 2021, at 12 p.m. GMT.

The transformative power of landscape is extremely important in times of crisis. Following the success of the 2020 Landscape Institute Awards, the LI Awards 2021 will aim to celebrate the exceptional contributions of landscape designers, managers, planners, and researchers across the world.

For more information, please visit https://awards.landscapeinstitute.org/.

Academic editors play a crucial role in leading our journals and ensuring that each article undergoes a robust and timely peer-review. With the launch of Topics this year and addition of Topic Editors to our family of academic editors, we decided it would be a good time to restructure our academic boards, thus providing more clarity and support for each role. MDPI is pleased to announce the launch of a new position—Topical Advisory Panel Member, that will replace the previous position of Topics Board Member. The Topical Advisory Panel will be comprised of early career researchers eager to gain experience in editorial work.

The main responsibility of the new members of the Topical Advisory Panel is to regularly provide support to Guest Editors, Topic Editors, and Section Board Members. The responsibilities of the Topical Advisory Panel are available here: https://www.mdpi.com/editors.

Each year, the members’ performances are evaluated, and outstanding members are promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief.

To qualify as a Topical Advisory Panel Member, applicants must:

• Have expertise and experience in the field related to the journal;
• Have received a Ph.D. in the last 10 years, approximately;
• Have at least 6-8 published papers in the last 5 years as first author or corresponding author;
• Currently hold an independent research position in academia or a government institute.

If you are interested in this role, please contact the editorial office by email.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Founded in 1996, MDPI was one of the first fully Open Access publisher. Over 25 years MDPI has grown to become the largest Open Access publisher globally, publishing over 160,000 articles across more than 350 journals in 2020. At the core, MDPI was founded in response to a pressing need of fast publication and inclusion. The scholar was set at the centre of the publication process for the first time. Acting as a service provider, rather than a product provider, MDPI exists to help scientists achive their objective to disseminate research results. At MDPI, we believe scientists deserve a better service from the publishing world.

The International Open Access Week (Open Access Week), founded by the SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Alliance and student partners in 2008, has been successfully running for 13 years. As an advocate and pioneer of open access publishing, MDPI actively responds to the call of International Open Access Week. This year’s theme of “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity” highlights the Recommendation’s call for equitable participation from all authors and readers.

For the last 25 years, MDPI has been committed to disseminating open research. Here is a video showing MDPI’s Commitment to Equity, Inclusion and Diversity for More than 25 Years.

International Open Access Week is an important opportunity to catalyze new conversations, create connections across and between communities that can facilitate this co-design, and advance progress in the building of more equitable foundations for opening knowledge—discussions and actions that need to be continued, year in and year out. MDPI has always aimed to provide professional and efficient publishing services to scholars around the world.

Our mission is to make scientific research accessible to everyone; this year, we interview and hold discussions with open science ambassadors on how to build an equal and inclusive environment for open science. Academic editors help us collaborate with more institutions to advocate for open access ideas.

Read our anniversary blog post: "Sharing 'Collective Human Knowledge': The Benefits of Open Access Publication"

Besides this, our scientific community is a key driver of our success and MDPI’s remarkable growth. Despite the pandemic, we have prepared online conferences and workshops to gather scholars from different communities.

The Basel Sustainable Publishing online forum provides an equal opportunity for stakeholders and researchers from multi-cultural environments to exchange ideas and eliminate barriers to participation.

Conference date: 25 October 2021, online
Conference website: https://bspf2021.sciforum.net/
Main topics: MDPI discusses the current dilemma of open access science from various perspectives such as governments, libraries, and publishers, and related measures on how to change the status quo of discrimination from a global perspective.

We aim to support equality, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications. We collaborate with universities and key laboratories and have scholarly communications with researchers, teachers, and students on open access workshops.

• 25 October 2021
  Energies journal and Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

• 28 October 2021
  Machines journal and State Key Laboratory of Traction Power, Southwest Jiaotong University

• 29 October 2021
  Processes journal and Beijing Institute of Technology

• 29 October 2021
  Coatings journal and Wuhan University of Technology

MDPI is committed to providing open access and high-quality publishing services for scholars and promoting rapid dissemination of academic achievements. We hope to promote the practices and policies of open access publishing and diversify the dissemination of academic achievements.

Rigorous peer-review is the cornerstone of high-quality academic publishing. Over 369,916 scholars served as reviewers for MDPI journals in 2020. We are extremely appreciative of all those who made a contribution to the editorial process in this capacity. At the beginning of every year, journal editorial offices publish a list of all reviewers’ names to express our gratitude. In addition, this year, the MDPI Top Reviewer Award was announced, to recognize the very best reviewers for their expertise and dedication, and their high-quality, and timely review reports. We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2020 MDPI Top Reviewer Award:

• Adriana Burlea-Schiopoiu;
• Alban Kuriqi;
• Álvaro González-Vila;
• Alessandro Alaimo;
• Alexey Beskopylny;
• Alexander Yu Churyumov;
• Alberto Fernández-Isabel;
• Andrea Mastinu;
• Antonios N. Papadopoulos;
• Anton Rassõlkin;
• Antonio Humberto Hamad Minervino;
• Arkadiusz Matwijczuk;
• Artur Słomka;
• Baojie He;
• Bartłomiej Potaniec;
• Bojan Đurin;
• Camilo Arturo Rodriguez Diaz;
• Carmelo Maria Musarella;
• Chiachung Chen;
• Chiman Kwan;
• Cristian Busu;
• Danil Pimenov;
• Dan-Cristian Dabija;
• Delfín Ortega-Sánchez;
• Demetrio Antonio Zema;
• Denis Butusov;
• Elena Lucchi;
• Gaurab Dutta;
• Livia Anastasiu;
• M. R. Safaei.

For more information about how to become a reviewer of MDPI journals, please see: www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. In 2020 the SDG Publishers Compact was launched, aimed to inspire publishers and accelerate progress to achieve the 17 goals by 2030. Members of the programme are committed to support the publication of materials that will promote and inspire actions towards SDGs.

MDPI is an eager advocate of SDGs and has already been supporting the programme by creating Special Issues and publishing a series of books on SDGs prior to joining the Compact in 2021. MDPI's Sustainability Foundation initiated the World Sustainability Awards in 2016. We fully support UN's goals to promote sustainable actions that make the world a better place for all and, as part of its commitment, we will focus our actions on SDG10: Reduced Inequalities whilst promoting all 17 SDGs. For more details, please visit the programme’s website: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sdg-publishers-compact/.

Joining this initiative was a unanimous decision. MDPI has in its core values the dissemination of science for all, breaking the wall between research access and under-represented members of the scientific community and the general population. To support this initiative further and continue to support under-represented scientists, MDPI will take a series of actions that will be announced once ready.

The first action MDPI takes is to nominate Dr. Liliane Auwerter as the coordinator of the programme. Dr. Auwerter studied Environmental Process Technology (UTFPR, Brazil), obtained her MSc degree in Water and Environmental Engineering (University of Surrey, UK) and in 2020 completed her PhD in self-healing low-friction materials for water transport (Imperial College London, UK), always focusing on diverse scientific projects that would potentially bring sustainability to industrial processes. As a student in Brazil, she engaged in volunteering activities focused on environmental education and took part in the Millennial Development Goals meetings held at the university.

For more information, please contact:
Dr. Liliane Auwerter
Scientific Officer
liliane.auwerter@mdpi.com

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Christine Fürst has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Land (ISSN 2073-445X, IF 3.395, CiteScore 3.0).

Prof. Dr. Christine Fürst is by training a forest scientist (LMU Munich, 1998) and obtained her Ph.D. as Dr. rer. silv. at TU Dresden in 2010. Since 2005, she has specialized in social–ecological systems research and since 2007, in an interdisciplinary process, she has developed an integrated land use change modeling and impact assessment software platform, GISCAME. In 2013, she passed her habilitation at the University of Bonn with venia legendi in natural resource management. In 2015, she moved to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research; and then, in 2016, moved, first as interim, and later as full professor for Sustainable Landscape Development, to Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Christine funded the European Land-Use Institute in 2011 and established the European Nodal Office of GLP in 2012. She is currently engaged in the scientific board of the Ecosystem Service Partnership and she is the lead author of the IPBES regional assessments, ECA region for chapters 5 and 6. From 2015 to 2019, she was president of the International Association of Landscape Ecology and is now past-president until 2023. Christine served in the context of Future Earth and in the development team of the Food–Energy–Water Nexus Knowledge Action Network. Her main research interests currently lie in integrative landscape modeling and impact assessment by means of a system of systems and in participatory decision processes in urban and regional spatial planning. Her regional research focus lies beyond Europe, in West Africa and Latin America.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Christine Fürst:

1. What do you like about being the Editor-in-Chief of Land? How would you like to develop Land?

It is an opportunity to accompany the community of land system scientists and develop a platform for publications in this field. I have a passion for co-developing the philosophy and concepts of publications so that emerging inter- and transdisciplinary publication trends can find better reflection through innovative publication formats. It is also a good chance to cooperate with all the colleagues, the section editors, and manifold members of the editorial board to exchange and enhance our understanding of the key challenges and future thematic areas where land system sciences can contribute to solving societal and environmental challenges.

2. Is Open Access popular among land scientists? What might your response be to Open Access skeptics?

I think Open Access has become more and more the publication model, particularly since the research funders require the accessibility of the publications, which is not given in no-open access models. Accessibility also increases awareness and, thus, the impact of published research, which makes it more rewarding. Additionally, it contributes to fairness toward scientists in developing countries who otherwise would not have access to recent knowledge. As long as publication fees are reasonable for all the publisher's work at the back-end and, if needed, support is provided to young scholars or scholars from developing countries, it is the best model to share knowledge globally.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Christine Fürst as our Editor-in-Chief and look forward to her valuable input for the continued success of Land.

Land Editorial Office

This serves to announce to our valued authors based in Japan that value-added tax, or consumption tax will now be imposed on article processing fees and other service fees for all papers submitted, or resubmitted (assigned new paper IDs), effective from 15 August 2021. The change is in accordance with the Japanese "Act for Partial Revision of the Income Tax Act and Other Acts" (Act No. 9 of 2015), which includes a revision of consumption taxation on cross-border supplies of services such as digital content distribution.

For additional information from the National Tax Agency please see here ("Cross-border supplies of electronic services").

Contact: Setsuko Nishihara, MDPI Tokyo

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X) is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land use/land change, land management, land system science, landscape, soil–sediment-water systems, urban contexts, urban–rural interactions, land–climate interactions, etc., published monthly online by MDPI. It is the only open access journal covering all aspects of land science, indexed within Scopus, SSCI (Web of Science), AGRICOLA, AGRIS, GeoRef, RePEc, and many other databases. Land has received an increased CiteScore (2020 Scopus data) of 3.0, and its 2020 Impact Factor is 3.395.

Land’s new Section “Landscape Architecture” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/sections/landscape_architecture)  is now recruiting Editorial Board Members!

The main responsibilities of the Section Editorial Board Members are as follows:

1) Supervising the quality of the papers in this Section (when we have new submissions to the Section);

2) Acting as a/recommending a Guest Editor for a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests;

3) Providing conference/society cooperation recommendations.

This position is open to experts in all aspects of landscape architecture. To apply for this position, recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) or Nacy Jiang (nacy.jiang@mdpi.com).

In June 2021, Landscape Institute (LI) chose Land as its preferred journal and became an affiliated society member. As part of this collaboration, all members of LI will enjoy a discount on the article processing charge (APC) when submitting articles to Land.

Landscape Institute (LI) is a professional organization whose functions are highly relevant to the scope of Land. We look forward to collaborating with LI and publishing state-of-the-art research from its members in this field.

The 2020 citation metrics have been officially released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR)!

We are pleased to announce that 85 MDPI journals are included, of which:

• 10 journals received their first impact factor
• 96% of journals increased their impact factor from 2019
• 32 journals (38%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category