Land Systems and Global Change
A section of Land (ISSN 2073-445X).
Section Information
Land systems (including land-use systems) are complex social–ecological systems composed of interacting social and biological actors, terrestrial environments, and the feedback among these components that shape the dynamics of Earth’s land surface across different scales, from local landscapes to global commodity chains. Land system science aims to understand these complex two-way interactions towards informing more sustainable governance of Earth’s land, including efforts to adapt to, manage, and mitigate coupled changes in climate, biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, food systems, social systems (including economics as well as issues of power and inequality), new technologies, energy systems, water systems, and other interacting social and ecological dynamics that shape the future of Earth’s land.
The transdisciplinary methods and tools of land system science are diverse and cut across the social and natural sciences in addition to the practices of environmental governance. Research methods include the remote sensing of land cover and land use and other approaches to social and environmental mapping as well as analysis, case studies of the causes and consequences of social and environmental change on the ground, metastudies and other approaches to knowledge synthesis, and regional as well as global simulations of coupled human–environment interactions over time. Applied land system science investigates and informs the operations of land systems, including strategies for researching and negotiating tradeoffs in addition to competing demands among diverse stakeholder populations, the governance of multifunctional landscapes, national and international policies and informal institutions governing land rights and access to land and other resources, commodity production and trade, the conservation and restoration of native habitats, and food system architectures at regional and global scales.
We invite authors to submit articles to Land that help to advance the scientific and applied understanding of the functioning and dynamics of land systems from regional to global scales. Articles that meet these goals, including the development of new scientific methods and governance tools that help translate knowledge into action, are welcome.
Editorial Board
Topical Advisory Panel
Special Issues
Following special issues within this section are currently open for submissions:
- Editors’ Collection Series: Remote Sensing of Land Change Science (Deadline: 31 March 2024)
- Selected Papers from the 2022 Annual Conference on Development Geography (Deadline: 1 April 2024)
- Feature Papers for Land Systems and Global Change Section (Deadline: 24 April 2024)
- Land Surface Monitoring Based on Satellite Imagery II (Deadline: 30 April 2024)
- Impacts of Climate Change on Human Wellbeing and Cultural Ecosystem Services (Deadline: 15 May 2024)
- Terrestrial Vegetation Dynamics and Its Response to Environmental Change (Deadline: 28 May 2024)
- Application of Participatory Geographic Information Systems in Land Use Planning (Deadline: 31 May 2024)
- Agroforestry Systems for Biodiversity and Landscape Conservation (Deadline: 31 May 2024)
- Geospatial Data in Land Suitability Assessment (Deadline: 31 May 2024)
- In Situ Conservation Tools to Mitigate Impacts from Global Change on Biodiversity (Deadline: 28 June 2024)
- Land Use Sustainability from the Viewpoint of Carbon Emission (Deadline: 30 June 2024)
- Key Hydrological Processes and Its Controlling Factors in Terrestrial Ecosystems (Deadline: 18 July 2024)
- Advances in Land Consolidation and Land Ecology (Deadline: 31 July 2024)
- Integrating Spatial Analysis and Regional Science to Guide Urban Planning (Deadline: 15 August 2024)
- Advancing Sustainability through Land-Related Approaches: Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Investigations (Deadline: 30 August 2024)
- Soil Legacies, Land Use Change and Forest and Grassland Restoration (Deadline: 5 September 2024)
- Innovative Research Approaches & Practices Towards Sustainable Land Management, Preservation & Restoration (Second Edition) (Deadline: 15 September 2024)
- Land Systems and Transformation to Sustainability (Deadline: 15 September 2024)
- Vegetation Spatial Dynamics and Plant Diversity Trends of Natural and Urban Landscapes (Deadline: 30 September 2024)
- Global Savanna Variation in Form and Function: Theory & Practice (Deadline: 30 September 2024)
- Dynamics of Terrestrial Environmental Systems (Deadline: 31 October 2024)
- Celebrating 10 Years of International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem (Deadline: 31 October 2024)
- Land Transformation, Climate Change and Agroecosystems Response and Adaptation (Deadline: 31 December 2024)