Dear Colleagues,

Protected areas are clearly defined geographical spaces, recognized and managed to achieve the long-term conservation of nature, ecosystem services, and cultural values. They include some 13% of the global land surface and 1.5% of the oceans and represent the most important sites for biodiversity conservation. Although natural vegetation plays an important role in the conservation of the entire ecosystem and all its components (plants, animals, soil, etc.), anthropogenic activities that can alter its balances are in sharp increase also in protected areas.

This Special Issue will focus on new interdisciplinary research and significant advances in the evaluation of impacts of human activities on natural vegetation conservation in protected areas. Authors are encouraged to submit their manuscripts on the following topics:

1) Impacts on vegetation due to climate changes;

2) Impacts on vegetation due to exotic species (e.g., plants, insects, mammals);

3) Impacts on vegetation due to silvicultural management;

4) Impacts on vegetation due to wildfire;

5) Impacts on vegetation due to alteration of the soils water regime;

6) Impacts on vegetation due to tourism and agriculture;

7) Impacts on vegetation due to air, water, and soil pollutants;

8) Impacts on vegetation due to urbanization;

9) Economic evaluation of impacts on vegetation;

10) Proposals to mitigate the impacts on vegetation and improve the environmental sustainability.

Dr. Adriano Stinca
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.

• protected areas
• natural vegetation
• anthropogenic impacts
• ecological impacts
• vegetation degradation
• nature conservation
• biotic interactions
• biodiversity
• ecosystem processes
• vegetation modeling
• environmental sustainability