Assessing, Valuing, and Mapping Ecosystem Services
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2025 | Viewed by 361
Special Issue Editors
Interests: land use/cover change; carbon emissions and carbon sequestration; ecosystem services
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: energy and environment policy analysis; water resources planning and management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: land use; ecosystem services; land use management; spatial analysis; sustainable development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: water resources planning and management; ecological risk analysis; hydrological simulation
Interests: forest economics; forest policy; governance; forest products marketing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Ecosystem services (ESs) are the benefits that humans derive from nature, including nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, air and water filtration, and soil conservation. Many aspects, such as climate change, land use change, vegetational cover, and human activities, can have significant impacts on ESs. Forests play a dominant role in the global ecosystem. A wide range of ESs are provided by forests. Investigating land use patterns and vegetation cover (the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the leaf area index (LAI), net primary productivity (NPP), etc.) is crucial to analyzing the benefits of forest-related ecosystems to humans, especially for carbon neutrality and sustainable development. The assessment and valuation of ESs can help us to understand the dynamic changes in ecosystems, perceive ecological risks, and formulate appropriate ecological restoration and protection strategies.
This Special Issue welcomes new data, methods, and findings on the following topics: (i) impact of land use changes (vegetation cover, fragmentation, land restoration, etc.) on forest-related ecosystem service provision; (ii) the quantification and the economic assessment of forest ESs (provisioning, regulating, and cultural services) and their trade-offs, synergies, as well as supply–demand analyses; (iii) impacts of policies and projects on forest-related ecosystem service provision. Original research and reviews aimed at understanding the spatio-temporal characteristics of ecological components, processes, functions, and patterns, as well as case studies integrating vegetation cover and ESs into policy decisions, are particularly encouraged.
Dr. Chao Wang
Prof. Dr. Xueting Zeng
Dr. Yuping Bai
Dr. Junlong Zhang
Prof. Dr. Davide M. Pettenella
Guest Editors
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. Forests 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.
Keywords
- ecosystem services (ESs)
- land use change
- the leaf area index
- vegetation cover
- ES assessment and valuation
- ES trade-offs and synergies
- ES supply, demand, and budgets
- carbon sequestration
- carbon neutrality
- human wellbeing
- scenario analysis
- nature-based solutions
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Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: Evaluating the Supply-Demand Relationships and Synergies of Urban Forest Ecosystem Services Based on LIDAR Data, and Defining Management Zones: A Case Study of Fuzhou, China
Author: Li
Highlights: 1.Innovative zoning framework based on ecosystem service supply-demand matching and synergies.
2.LiDAR, i-Tree Eco, and Kriging used to assess four key ecosystem services.
3.Ecosystem Synergy Service Index (ECSI) developed to measure the intensity of service synergies.
4.Eight distinct ecological zones identified, each with tailored management strategies.
