Dear Colleagues,
Currently, more than 50% of the global population live in cities, a percentage that is estimated to reach 68% by 2050 (UN, 2018). Urban transitions often take place beyond the urban administrative boundaries of the cities, extend across whole regions. This fosters the emergence of transitional peri-urban landscapes (PULs) represented by a mixture of diverse land uses/covers, diminishing agricultural or forest characteristics, and increasing urban peculiarities.
The dynamic urbanization and peri-urbanization processes are endangering the sustainability of PULs. In many cases, the policies implemented in PUL and peri-urban project development come at the expense of nature, significantly affecting most of its main functions. This is particularly evident in contexts where the level of biodiversity is still relevant, and it can play a vital role in changing natural ecosystems. In particular, the biodiversity of PULs is becoming endangered due to the dynamic investments taking part in different parts of PULs. At the same time, because of the increasing number of peri-urban inhabitants, PULs are being characterized by a rising demand for various types of ecosystem services (ES), while ES-providing areas in PULs are diminishing. This situation is fostering ES and biodiversity trade-offs and causing a gap between ES demand and provision. Different ES deficit areas emerge constantly in PULs. ES and biodiversity are two components of peri-urbanization process that need to be carefully investigated.
For this Special Issue of Land, we invite authors to submit theoretical considerations and descriptions of practical case studies concerning ES and the biodiversity of PULs.
Specifically, we welcome papers discussing the following topics:
Prof. Dr. Christine Fürst
Dr. Marcin Spyra
Dr. Nica Claudia Caló
Dr. HongMi Koo
Guest Editors
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2021