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Urban Landscape Ecology and Sustainability
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Urban Landscape Ecology and Sustainability

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 June 2023) | Viewed by 11143

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Alessandro Bellino

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry and Biology “Adolfo Zambelli”, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, SA, Italy
Interests: ecology and evolution; landscape patterns and processes; sustainable ecosystem management; environmental monitoring and assessment; ecological modelling and data analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Daniela Baldantoni

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry and Biology “Adolfo Zambelli”, University of Salerno, 4084 Fisciano, SA, Italy
Interests: biomonitoring; environmental pollution; sustainable ecosystems management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Ecological and socio-economic processes intertwine in urban ecosystems, producing complex multi-scale spatial organizations that primarily determine ecosystem functioning and the interactions of the urban tissue with the surrounding environment. Coherently, spatially explicit approaches borrowing from landscape ecology principles have recently been raised to form the backbone of current attempts at understanding, modeling and ensuring sustainability of urban ecosystems. The latter is rapidly becoming the ultimate goal of urban landscape ecology, upon the recognition of the key role of building sustainable urban ecosystems in ensuring the global sustainable development of human society. In this context, urban landscape ecology provides a unique combination of shared concepts for ecologists, geographers, social scientists, planners and engineers and a set of methodologies borrowing from diverse disciplines, fostering the efficient and trans-disciplinary effort in addressing urban ecosystem challenges.

This Special Issue, “Urban Landscape Ecology and Sustainability”, aims to become a prominent platform for sharing novel findings, ideas, opinions and critical revisions of consolidated concepts in the field of urban ecology, with a special focus on approaches considering the spatial patterns and scales of urban ecosystems and aiming at evaluating or promoting their sustainability. Toward this end, relevant articles, commentaries and reviews from all branches of urban ecology and related disciplines dealing with every type of human settlement are welcome, from rural centers to megacities all over the world.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Alessandro Bellino
Dr. Daniela Baldantoni
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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

Keywords

  • ecology
  • urban ecosystem
  • landscape
  • ecosystem functioning
  • social–economic–ecological interactions
  • planning

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 4339 KiB  
Article
The Ecological Efficiency of Green Materials in Sustainable Urban Planning—A Model for Its Measurement
by Isidoro Fasolino, Federica Cicalese, Alessandro Bellino, Michele Grimaldi, M. Rosario del Caz-Enjuto and Daniela Baldantoni
Sustainability 2023, 15(22), 16038; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152216038 - 17 Nov 2023
Viewed by 743
Abstract
Urban green planning is crucial in promoting sustainable urban ecosystems through the mindful use of vegetation, but few approaches are currently able to account for the ecosystem services provided by urban green planning in ex ante planning applications. The present research proposes a [...] Read more.
Urban green planning is crucial in promoting sustainable urban ecosystems through the mindful use of vegetation, but few approaches are currently able to account for the ecosystem services provided by urban green planning in ex ante planning applications. The present research proposes a methodological approach to sustainable urban planning that accounts for the ecological role of vegetation in urban ecosystems. Indeed, by estimating the functions exerted by different vegetation elements in urban ecosystems through a purposely developed set of equations, the procedure allows for the optimization of the development of urban plans by maximizing the contribution of vegetation to ecosystem dynamics. Specifically, the proposed methodology is articulated in two phases, i.e., the functional role of vegetation is firstly modeled through simple geometric features and specific ecological traits accounting for plant interactions with the environment, and then the selected vegetation traits are used in guiding the choice of the species. The approach has been exemplified through case studies, thereby highlighting its ability to guide planning decisions based on the type, abundance, and spatial organization of vegetation to promote the sustainability of urban development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Landscape Ecology and Sustainability)
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20 pages, 10818 KiB  
Article
Construction of Nature Reserves’ Ecological Security Pattern Based on Landscape Ecological Risk Assessment: A Case Study of Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, China
by Lingfan Ju, Yan Liu, Jin Yang, Mingshun Xiang, Qing Xiang, Wenkai Hu and Zhengyi Ding
Sustainability 2023, 15(11), 8707; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15118707 - 28 May 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1202
Abstract
Human activities are constantly affecting ecological space, and the construction of ecological security patterns to ensure ecological security has become an issue that must be considered for sustainable development. At present, little attention has been paid to the ecological security of cities with [...] Read more.
Human activities are constantly affecting ecological space, and the construction of ecological security patterns to ensure ecological security has become an issue that must be considered for sustainable development. At present, little attention has been paid to the ecological security of cities with a high number of nature reserves. In this study, we took Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in China, which has many nature reserves, as the research object to construct an ecological security pattern with nature reserves as ecological sources. Firstly, Fragstats 4.2 and ArcGIS 10.4 were used to obtain the ecological risk evaluation results of the study area landscape. Secondly, a “nature–society–landscape” resistance factor system and an ecological resistance surface were constructed using a minimum resistance model. Finally, the ecological safety zone of the nature reserve was divided, and the ecological safety pattern of the nature reserve was established. (1) The ecological risk of the study area shows a spatial distribution pattern of “low in the northwest and high in the southeast”, with low and moderate-low ecological risk dominating; (2) The study area has formed an ecological security pattern consisting of 9 ecological sources, 35 ecological nodes, 8 ecological corridors with a total length of 702.96 km and 4 ecological safety zones; (3) The ecological security pattern of nature reserves in the study area was divided into four categories: low, medium, high and moderate-high ecological safety zones, accounting for 20.62%, 27.34%, 24.48% and 27.55%, respectively. This study provides a new framework for the construction of urban ecological safety patterns and offers scientific guidance for the conservation and management of nature reserves and urban ecology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Landscape Ecology and Sustainability)
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19 pages, 4006 KiB  
Article
Assessment of the Urban Expansion and Its Impact on the Eco-Environment—A Case Study of Hefei Municipal Area
by Xiamei Yao, Yuanyuan Chen, Qingyi Zhang, Zhongqiong Mou, Xiaojie Yao and Chun Ou
Sustainability 2022, 14(17), 10613; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141710613 - 25 Aug 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1657
Abstract
With the advancement of urbanization, the ecological environmental changes caused by the continuous expansion of cities have become a major concern. Thus, this study is based on a remote sensing image map of Hefei city from 1984 to 2020, which is now in [...] Read more.
With the advancement of urbanization, the ecological environmental changes caused by the continuous expansion of cities have become a major concern. Thus, this study is based on a remote sensing image map of Hefei city from 1984 to 2020, which is now in the process of rapid development. We constructed an index system with ecological land, ecosystem service value, ecological environment quality, urban land expansion coefficient, urban heat island rate index, total pollutant emissions, ecological pressure, and ecological deficit, and then evaluated the ecological environment of Hefei city with the help of the entropy weight comprehensive evaluation method. The results show that (1) in the positive evaluation index, the ecological land area was reduced to half of the original area, the ecological service value was reduced by 0.37 times its initial value, and the eco-environmental index was <35 and still decreasing. (2) In the negative evaluation index, the urban heat island ratio index increased by nearly 10 times its initial value, the total emission of various pollutants increased by 6.64 times its initial value, the ecological deficit increased year by year after 1999, and the ecological pressure in 2020 increased to 3 times that in 1999. (3) The overall environmental score of the Hefei urban area has decreased by 48.6 times its initial value. The values of positive evaluation indexes are decreasing, whereas the values of negative evaluation indexes are increasing, and both these items are moving backward, leading to the decrease in the comprehensive ecological environmental score. It can be noticed that the urban expansion of Hefei has had a severe impact on the ecological environment, resulting in the continuous reduction in the ecological land area, a serious urban heat island effect, and continuous weakening of regional ecological service functions. The study results can be used for reference in alleviating the impacts of urban expansion on the environment, promoting the optimization of the urban landscape and the sustainable development of the social economy and environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Landscape Ecology and Sustainability)
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18 pages, 28183 KiB  
Article
Landscape Pattern Evolution in a Mining City: An Urban Life Cycle Perspective
by Yuhang Shang, Xin Ye, Lun Dong, Shiming Liu, Tiantian Du and Guan Wang
Sustainability 2022, 14(14), 8492; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148492 - 11 Jul 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1786
Abstract
Quantitative studies on how mining activities shape the evolution of regional landscape patterns can contribute to the scientific understanding of how mining cities develop. Based on the theories of life cycle and landscape ecology, this paper takes Jixi, a typical Chinese mining city, [...] Read more.
Quantitative studies on how mining activities shape the evolution of regional landscape patterns can contribute to the scientific understanding of how mining cities develop. Based on the theories of life cycle and landscape ecology, this paper takes Jixi, a typical Chinese mining city, as a case study to analyze the landscape pattern features at different mining city development stages. First, we constructed a mining city development cycle index system. Second, the optimal granularity for landscape pattern analysis was determined. Finally, landscape evolution was analyzed at the type and landscape levels based on the mining city development cycle. The main conclusions are: (1) Jixi has gone through four stages since 1990: lead-in (1990–1998), development (1998–2009), maturity (2009–2016), and transition (2016–2020); (2) the optimal grain size for landscape pattern analysis is 90 m; (3) through the various development stages, the landscape fragmentation degree, complexity, and diversity show a tendency to rise first and then fall. Thus, mining cities should carry out sustainable development planning from the perspective of industrial transformation in the early stages, and policy orientation in the development process should have different emphases according to each stage. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Landscape Ecology and Sustainability)
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21 pages, 2743 KiB  
Article
Construction and Restoration of Landscape Ecological Network in Urumqi City Based on Landscape Ecological Risk Assessment
by Yongyu Zhao, Alimujiang Kasimu, Hongwu Liang and Rukeya Reheman
Sustainability 2022, 14(13), 8154; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14138154 - 04 Jul 2022
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 2366
Abstract
The ecological protection and sustainable development of Urumqi have become an important part of the high-quality growth of the urban agglomeration on the northern slope of Tianshan Mountain. Under the impacts of multi-source factors, the ecological landscape pattern of Urumqi has changed due [...] Read more.
The ecological protection and sustainable development of Urumqi have become an important part of the high-quality growth of the urban agglomeration on the northern slope of Tianshan Mountain. Under the impacts of multi-source factors, the ecological landscape pattern of Urumqi has changed due to it being in a fragile eco-environment, so an ecological network is desperately needed to enhance ecological security patterns. Taking Urumqi city as the study area, the ecological risk evaluation model and the minimum cumulative resistance model were integrated to analyze the spatial and temporal features of landscape ecological risk from 2000 to 2020, and the future land use simulation model was used to predict the ecological risk pattern of Urumqi in 2030, construct a landscape ecological network, and propose ecological security protection strategies. Since 2000, land use in Urumqi has undergone drastic changes: the built-up land area has increased significantly, the landscape has diversified, and landscape fragmentation has shown a decreasing trend from the main urban area as the core to the urban fringe. The high-risk landscape ecology shows a decreasing trend from east to west, mainly in the bare land areas with sparse vegetation, whereas the risk is relatively low in woodland, arable land, and built-up areas. The change of risk in the study area is mainly influenced by the typical defective factors of oasis cities such as urban expansion, land desertification, and sparse vegetation. The landscape ecological network is mainly located in the southwest, central, and east of the study area, whereas there is no corridor distribution in the north and southeast, which is mainly caused by the special geographical location and climatic conditions. The ecological network mainly consists of 10 ecological sources and 10 ecological corridors and proposes conservation strategies for the optimization of the landscape pattern and for the construction of the ecological security pattern in Urumqi, providing a guide for the improvement of ecological security. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Landscape Ecology and Sustainability)
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16 pages, 5376 KiB  
Article
GIS-Based Model for Constructing Ecological Efficiency Maps of Urban Green Areas: The Case Study of Western Naples, Italy
by Valeria D’Ambrosio, Ferdinando Di Martino and Marina Rigillo
Sustainability 2022, 14(11), 6830; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116830 - 02 Jun 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2282
Abstract
This research implements a GIS framework model aimed at evaluating the ecological efficiency of urban green areas. The model classifies urban green areas by identifying those that can provide ecosystem services to sustain green infrastructure at an urban district level. This model can [...] Read more.
This research implements a GIS framework model aimed at evaluating the ecological efficiency of urban green areas. The model classifies urban green areas by identifying those that can provide ecosystem services to sustain green infrastructure at an urban district level. This model can also guide decision makers in the proper placement of the green infrastructure. The model works on the interrelation of four indicators of size, shape, vegetation structure and vegetation diversity, and it was tested in the case study of the Western Urban Districts of Naples (Italy). The selection of this study area is because it presents four urban districts that are different for physiography, urban patterns, land use, land cover and for the existing building stock. The proposed GIS-based framework can be a useful tool for planning actions and measures to protect, implement and restore existing green areas through integration into urban green infrastructure. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Landscape Ecology and Sustainability)
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