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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2021) | Viewed by 11139

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Assoc. Prof. Thierry Feuillet

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Department of Geography, University Paris 8, 2 Rue de la Liberté, 93526 Saint-Denis, France
Interests: theoretical and quantitative geography; spatial analysis; human–environment relationships
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In a world that is both increasingly populated and resource-constrained, while dramatically warming, human–environment interaction-related issues have become essential. How should or can societies use resources in a sustainable way, i.e., by achieving simultaneously social, environmental, and economic targets? How do societies adapt to climate change? How do they try to manage their territories in this transitional context? Environmental geography has been examining these problems for decades. All the while, spatial analysis, which aims to understand and explain spatial patterns of phenomena and processes through rigorous mathematical description, has been continuously strengthened since the 1950s–1960s, grounded on the theoretical and quantitative revolution in geography. With more and more available data, whether social or environmental, as well as increasingly powerful analytical tools, the approaches and techniques of spatial analysis appear nowadays as suitable answers for handling human–environment-related issues.

This Special Issue calls for papers that have used spatial analysis models or techniques (e.g., geosimulation, spatial statistics, geocomputation, geoviz, remote sensing, and GIS) to address sustainability-related human–environment issues. We welcome papers dealing with a wide range of topics (e.g., resources (energy, water, forest, etc.) management, environmental conflicts, landscape ecology, health-related issues, natural hazards assessment, cryosphere issues, natural heritage conservation), and milieus (e.g., urban areas, mountain environment, coastlines, rural areas)). Papers using empirical locational/contextual analyses for presenting recommendations to stakeholders and policymakers are particularly encouraged.

Assoc. Prof. Thierry Feuillet
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.

Keywords

spatial statistics
locational analyses
geocomputation
GIS, human–environment interactions
resources
ecology
natural hazards
natural heritage

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 2974 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Home Gardening and the Social Divide of Suburban Space: Methodological Proposal for the Spatial Analysis of a Social Practice in the Greater Paris Urban Area

by Ségolène Darly, Thierry Feuillet and Clémence Laforêt

Sustainability 2021, 13(6), 3243; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13063243 - 16 Mar 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2557

Abstract

This paper explores home gardening geography in metropolitan outskirts, seen as a major asset and challenge of the alternative suburban city model. Studies that estimate the domestic production of backyard gardens are scarce, but they all confirm the persistence of an ancient and “ordinary” phenomenon still firmly rooted in the food landscape of the globalised North cities. To fill a gap in European alternative urban and food systems studies, we focus on the case of two subsectors of the extended suburban belt of greater Paris agglomeration. We designed and performed a spatial analysis protocol that differentiates vegetable garden types to test spatial relationships between environmental and intrinsic factors and assess clustering patterns. We had to overcome several methodological barriers by building an original vegetable gardens database and applying distinct qualitative and quantitative methods. Our results show spatial home gardening patterns differentiation at three intertwined levels: At the micro-level of domestic space (according to the size and share of vegetable plots); at the house block level (according to their socio-economic and built environment profile); and at the level of the housing estates or urban agglomeration (according to the geography of social specialisation). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Geography, Spatial Analysis and Sustainability)

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17 pages, 5081 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Impacts in Real Estate of Landscape Values: Evidence from Tuscany (Italy)

by Francesco Riccioli, Roberto Fratini and Fabio Boncinelli

Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 2236; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13042236 - 19 Feb 2021

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2733

Abstract

Using spatial econometric techniques and local spatial statistics, this study explores the relationships between the real estate values in Tuscany with the individual perception of satisfaction by landscape types. The analysis includes the usual territorial variables such as proximity to urban centres and roads. The landscape values are measured through a sample of respondents who expressed their aesthetic-visual perceptions of different types of land use. Results from a multivariate local Geary highlight that house prices are not spatial independent and that between the variables included in the analysis there is mainly a positive correlation. Specifically, the findings demonstrate a significant spatial dependence in real estate prices. The aesthetic values influence the real estate price throughout more a spatial indirect effect rather than the direct effect. Practically, house prices in specific areas are more influenced by aspects such as proximity to essential services. The results seem to show to live close to highly aesthetic environments not in these environments. The results relating to the distance from the main roads, however, seem counterintuitive. This result probably depends on the evidence that these areas suffer from greater traffic jam or pollution or they are preferred for alternative uses such as for locating industrial plants or big shopping centres rather than residential use. Therefore, these effects decrease house prices. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Geography, Spatial Analysis and Sustainability)

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18 pages, 1191 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Weight Approximation for Spatial Outcomes

by Jay Simon

Sustainability 2020, 12(14), 5588; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12145588 - 11 Jul 2020

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1817

Abstract

When preferences explicitly include a spatial component, it can be challenging to assign weights to geographic regions in a way that is both pragmatic and accurate. In multi-attribute decision making, weights reflect cardinal information about preferences that can be difficult to assess thoroughly in practice. Recognizing this challenge, researchers have developed several methods for using ordinal rankings to approximate sets of cardinal weights. However, when the set of weights reflects a set of geographic regions, the number of weights can be enormous, and it may be cognitively challenging for decision makers to provide even a coherent ordinal ranking. This is often the case in policy decisions with widespread impacts. This paper uses a simulation study for spatial preferences to evaluate the performance of several rank-based weight approximation methods, as well as several new methods based on assigning each region to a tier expressing the extent to which it should influence the evaluation of policy alternatives. The tier-based methods do not become more cognitively complex as the number of regions increases, they allow decision makers to express a wider range of preferences, and they are similar in accuracy to rank-based methods when the number of regions is large. The paper then demonstrates all of these approximation methods with preferences for water usage by census block in a United States county. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Geography, Spatial Analysis and Sustainability)

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21 pages, 12992 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spatial Patterns of Vineyard Abandonment and Related Land Use Transitions in Beaujolais (France): A Multiscale Approach

by Etienne Cossart, Jessica Pic, Yoann Le Guen and Mathieu Fressard

Sustainability 2020, 12(11), 4695; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12114695 - 09 Jun 2020

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2878

Abstract

While the resilience of French vineyards is currently threatened, this paper focuses on the Beaujolais terroir, where the disappearance of vineyards has been qualitatively observed by local stakeholders. A targeted survey was led at three complementary scales. First, we provide an overview of the evolution of agricultural landscapes and practices for the whole Beaujolais area since 1990 from national statistical databases. It shows that the vineyard extent reached a maximum during the 1990s and that significant bifurcation occurred in 2000. Second, we document land use evolution in relation to vineyard abandonment at a more local scale. Three case studies (lower Ardières, Marverand, Merloux) exemplify the main local settings, and the land uses are described over time from an analysis that employed multitemporal photo interpretation. The results quantified the decrease in the vineyard surface extent since 1999: approximately 30% was lost in regular terroirs and 5% was lost in high added-value terroirs. Third, at a fine scale, we explained the precise location of the abandoned parcels regarding the site characteristics (e.g., incoming solar radiation, slope gradient, terroir quality). The results showed differences in evolution patterns between southern and northern Beaujolais. In northern Beaujolais, winegrowers tended to abandon vine parcels that were considered of lower quality; while, in southern Beaujolais, the winegrowers tended to abandon vine parcels in relation to the difficulty of maintenance (remote and steep parcels were preferentially abandoned) or in relation to suburbanization (parcels close to built-up areas were preferentially abandoned). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Geography, Spatial Analysis and Sustainability)

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