Peri-Urban Agriculture, Water Security, and Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

The rapidly increasing population and urban migration across the world are creating new and complex challenges. The current water and land-use changes in urban and peri-urban regions have profound consequences for peri-urban agriculture, water and food security, lifestyle, environment, health and the overall wellbeing of urban and peri-urban communities. It is now increasingly being realised that we cannot altogether stop urbanisation due to several reasons but need to restructure and rebalance the way we plan land use and manage urban growth and urban agriculture.

Achieving and maintaining the sustainability, liveability and productivity of urban and peri-urban regions must address several key goals which include local water and food security, provision of adequate infrastructure, adaptation to new environments created by climate change, reduction in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, provision of adequate water supply and safe use and disposal of urban wastewater and maintaining biodiversity and some level of farming. It is therefore important for policy makers, urban and peri-urban planners and municipal council managers to understand the current issues and challenges in order to develop appropriate contextual strategies and practices to cope with current and future pressures of urbanisation and peri-urban land-use changes.

In this Special Issue, we invite manuscripts from researchers and practitioners on aspects of how urbanisation is impacting water availability and peri-urban food production and the importance of understanding hydrology, stormwater management, urban wetlands, climate change and socioeconomic issues and incorporating systemic thinking and different worldviews in creating liveable urban and peri-urban regions.

Prof. Dr. Basant Maheshwari
Dr. Dharma Hagare
Prof. Dr. Ashantha Goonetilleke
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. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2600 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.

• urban agriculture
• land use changes
• water management
• peri-urban landscapes
• food production
• urbanisation
• liveability
• sustainability
• sustainable development goals
• wastewater reuse
• climate change