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Sustainability
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Agricultural Landscapes: Challenges and Opportunities
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Agricultural Landscapes: Challenges and Opportunities

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 July 2022) | Viewed by 13458

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Peter Szilassi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Geoinformatics, Physical and Environmental Geography, University of Szeged, Egyetem u. 2-6, H-6722 Szeged, Hungary
Interests: land use change; landscape pattern; landscape ecology; urban ecology; geospatial analyses
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Agricultural ecosystems supply a wide range of supporting, regulating, provisioning, and cultural ecosystem services. The sustainable use of these agroecosystem services is a key factor for the next generations. From an environmentally perspective, agrarian landscapes are very sensitive areas, with very heterogeneous human–environment interactions and increasing anthropogenic pressures. For the sustainable land use planning of these areas, a deep understanding of the recent ecological, environmental, and economic processes of the agrarian landscapes is necessary. For this purpose, we need to analyze the main driving forces, dynamics, and characteristics of the recent land use transformations of agrarian landscapes, such as in the case of urban sprawl and other rural–urban interactions. If we want to protect the natural value of agroecosystems and the biodiversity of agricultural landscapes, we need to consider the connections between the landscape pattern and the landscape ecological processes based on the “pattern and process” paradigm. To protect the productivity of agroecosystems, it is necessary to understand the environmental processes generated by climate change, and their impacts on the agricultural landscapes.

For this Special Issue, we welcome empirical and conceptual research papers and literature reviews to provide possible solutions that minimize the environmental pressures on agrarian landscapes generated by anthropogenic processes, and to mitigate the potential effects of climate change. Papers selected for this Special Issue are subject to a very fast peer review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications. Specifically, we welcome papers focused on, or related to, the topics listed as below:

  • Sustainable land use of agricultural landscapes.
  • Social, ecological, and economic sustainability of rural landscapes.
  • Conserving ecosystem services across agricultural landscapes.
  • Land productivity and economic sustainability of agricultural landscapes.
  • Land use transformations from agrarian landscapes into energy landscapes.
  • Recent and predicted land use change of agricultural landscapes.
  • Biodiversity of agricultural landscapes.
  • Landscape patterns and landscape ecological processes of agricultural landscapes.
  • Landscape analyses of agricultural landscapes with remote sensing and GIS methods.
  • Climate change and the mitigation of agrarian landscapes.
  • Environmental sensitivity of agrarian landscapes.
  • Rural–urban fringe as a conflict zone.
  • Economic sustainability of agrarian landscapes.
  • Protection of land productivity.

Dr. Peter Szilassi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 3836 KiB  
Article
Land Use Changes in Peri-Urban Open Spaces of Small Towns in Eastern Hungary
by Péter Csorba, Krisztina Bánóczki and Zoltán Túri
Sustainability 2022, 14(17), 10680; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141710680 - 27 Aug 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1677
Abstract
Changes in land use were studied in 2 km wide peri-urban open spaces of seven small Hungarian towns as part of a RENATUR Interreg Europe (2019–2023) project. The aim of the project is to present best practices related to the sustainable and wise [...] Read more.
Changes in land use were studied in 2 km wide peri-urban open spaces of seven small Hungarian towns as part of a RENATUR Interreg Europe (2019–2023) project. The aim of the project is to present best practices related to the sustainable and wise use of the peri-urban open spaces of small European towns. The rate and tendencies of conversion from one land use type to another were evaluated on the basis of a comparison of Corine Land Cover and Land Cover Change databases from 1990, 2000 and 2018. Land use changes in the study areas in different time periods were studied for which the Corine categories were aggregated. Subsequently, there were field verification surveys carried out between March and June of 2021. Most significant changes—due to the significant increase of built-up areas—were found in the case of the towns that were developed to form the suburbs of Debrecen, the core settlement of their region with a population of 200,000. In the case of settlements further away from the major city, the population is either stagnating or decreasing, and the size of built-up areas hardly increases. In the case of cities that are surrounded by high-quality chernozem soils with profitable agriculture, large-scale arable lands have become dominant in the border zones of the settlements, as the spatial extent of gardens, orchards and grasslands has decreased. Highly diverse and mosaic land use (dominated by small plots) is not characteristic anywhere. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Landscapes: Challenges and Opportunities)
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20 pages, 3806 KiB  
Article
Connection between the Spatial Characteristics of the Road and Railway Networks and the Air Pollution (PM10) in Urban–Rural Fringe Zones
by Seyedehmehrmanzar Sohrab, Nándor Csikós and Péter Szilassi
Sustainability 2022, 14(16), 10103; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141610103 - 15 Aug 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2386
Abstract
Atmospheric particulate matter (PM10) is one of the most important pollutants for human health, and road transport could be a major anthropogenic source of it. Several research studies have shown the impact of roads on the air quality in urban areas, but the [...] Read more.
Atmospheric particulate matter (PM10) is one of the most important pollutants for human health, and road transport could be a major anthropogenic source of it. Several research studies have shown the impact of roads on the air quality in urban areas, but the relationship between road and rail networks and ambient PM10 concentrations has not been well studied, especially in suburban and rural landscapes. In this study, we examined the link between the spatial characteristics of each road type (motorway, primary road, secondary road, and railway) and the annual average PM10 concentration. We used the European 2931 air quality (AQ) station dataset, which is classified into urban, suburban, and rural landscapes. Our results show that in urban and rural landscapes, the spatial characteristics (the density of the road network and its distance from the AQ monitoring points) have a significant statistical relationship with PM10 concentrations. According to our findings from AQ monitoring sites within the urban landscape, there is a significant negative relationship between the annual average PM10 concentration and the density of the railway network. This result can be explained by the driving wind generated by railway trains (mainly electric trains). Among the road network types, all road types in the urban landscape, only motorways in the suburban landscape, and only residential roads in the rural landscape have a significant positive statistical relationship with the PM10 values at the AQ monitoring points. Our results show that in the suburban zones, which represent the rural–urban fringe, motorways have a strong influence on PM-related air pollution. In the suburban areas, the speed of vehicles changes frequently near motorways and intersections, so higher traffic-related PM10 emission levels can be expected in these areas. The findings of this study can be used to decrease transportation-related environmental conflicts related to the air quality in urban, urban–rural fringe, and rural (agricultural) landscapes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Landscapes: Challenges and Opportunities)
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15 pages, 1071 KiB  
Article
The Impact Effect of Coal Price Fluctuations on China’s Agricultural Product Price
by Wenbin Du, You Wu, Yunliang Zhang and Ya Gao
Sustainability 2022, 14(15), 8971; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14158971 - 22 Jul 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1620
Abstract
Few studies have used China’s latest economic data to verify the interaction between coal price fluctuation and vegetable price fluctuation. Therefore, the sharing of existing knowledge in the academic community is mainly reflected in this paper, which explores the influence between coal prices [...] Read more.
Few studies have used China’s latest economic data to verify the interaction between coal price fluctuation and vegetable price fluctuation. Therefore, the sharing of existing knowledge in the academic community is mainly reflected in this paper, which explores the influence between coal prices and agricultural product prices for the first time. Further, it supplements the verification of the effective parameters of vegetable price fluctuation in academia. The current study investigates the relationship between coal prices (thermal coal price) and agricultural product prices (vegetable prices) in China from 2016 to 2021. It uses separate time-series models to verify the effect of China’s coal price fluctuation on the price of agricultural products and explores the effect of the coal price on the vegetables’ price trend. The results confirm that the thermal coal price significantly impacts and positively affects vegetable prices. There is also a linkage between the price of coal and the security of agricultural products. It might mainly be due to coal usage in various stages of the growing, storage, transportation, and distribution of agricultural products. Higher coal prices may lead to higher agricultural prices, threatening China’s coal-dominant energy structure. These higher coal prices will endanger domestic energy security and agricultural security. Finally, this study also suggests ways to manage the effect of increased coal prices on agricultural product prices and then puts forward policy suggestions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Landscapes: Challenges and Opportunities)
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15 pages, 7881 KiB  
Article
Influence of the Shortening of the Winter Fertilization Prohibition Period in Hungary Assessed by Spatial Crop Simulation Analysis
by Sándor Koós, Béla Pirkó, Gábor Szatmári, Péter Csathó, Marianna Magyar, József Szabó, Nándor Fodor, László Pásztor, Annamária Laborczi, Klára Pokovai and Anita Szabó
Sustainability 2021, 13(1), 417; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010417 - 05 Jan 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3304
Abstract
The Nitrates Directive aims (a) to protect water quality across Europe from nitrates originating from agricultural sources that pollute ground and surface water, and (b) to promote good farming practices. One of the most controversial measures of the directive is the winter prohibition [...] Read more.
The Nitrates Directive aims (a) to protect water quality across Europe from nitrates originating from agricultural sources that pollute ground and surface water, and (b) to promote good farming practices. One of the most controversial measures of the directive is the winter prohibition period of fertilization, which has been extended by a month in two steps in recent years. According to the regulation, it is forbidden to apply nitrogen fertilization in Hungary between 31st October and 15th February, even though the winter climate is gradually becoming milder. Using the fertilization data of nearly half a million parcels of land in the Hungarian Nitrate Database, a crop model-based spatial analysis was carried out. Our aim was to test if a shift in the prohibition period starting date from 31st October to 30th November caused any differences in the nitrate amount leached at a 90 cm depth. Detailed nitrate inputs and soil and weather databases were coupled with the 4M crop model. The yield, plant nitrogen uptake, and nitrate leaching under five major crops were simulated, covering a considerable portion of arable land. Shifting the prohibition period starting date did not result in significant changes in the nitrate leaching. Further runs of the 4M model with different weather scenarios are needed to decide whether the modification of the prohibition period significantly affects the amount of nitrate leached. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Landscapes: Challenges and Opportunities)
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18 pages, 8917 KiB  
Article
Spatiotemporal Variation of Vegetation Coverage and Its Response to Climate Factors and Human Activities in Arid and Semi-Arid Areas: Case Study of the Otindag Sandy Land in China
by Hao Wang, Fei Yao, Huasheng Zhu and Yuanyuan Zhao
Sustainability 2020, 12(12), 5214; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12125214 - 26 Jun 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 2495
Abstract
Vegetation coverage is a key variable in terrestrial ecosystem monitoring and climate change research and is closely related to soil erosion and land desertification. In this article, we aimed to resolve two key scientific issues: (1) quantifying the spatial-temporal vegetation dynamics in the [...] Read more.
Vegetation coverage is a key variable in terrestrial ecosystem monitoring and climate change research and is closely related to soil erosion and land desertification. In this article, we aimed to resolve two key scientific issues: (1) quantifying the spatial-temporal vegetation dynamics in the Otindag Sandy Land (OSL); and (2) identifying the relative importance of climate factors and human activities in impacting vegetation dynamics. Based on correlation analysis, simple regression analysis, and the partial derivative formula method, we examined the spatiotemporal variation of vegetation coverage in the OSL, belonging to the arid and semiarid region of northern China, and their interaction with climate-human factors. The results showed that the vegetation coverage of the area showed a downward trend with a rate of −0.0006/a during 2001–2017, and gradually decreased from east to west. Precipitation was the main climate factor controlling the overall distribution pattern of vegetation coverage, while the human factors had a more severe impact on the vegetation coverage than the climate factors in such a short period, and the overall impact was negative. Among the human factors, population pressure, urbanization, industrialization, pastoral production activities, and residents’ lifestyles had a negative impact. However, ecological restoration polices alleviated the contradiction between human development and vegetation deterioration. The results of this article provide a scientific basis for restoring grassland systems in arid and semi-arid areas Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Landscapes: Challenges and Opportunities)
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