Land–Water–Energy–Food (LWEF) System Coupling and Sustainable Development of Watersheds

Dear Colleagues,

Land, water, energy, and food are the basic requirements for maintaining human existence and ensuring sustainable socio-economic development. Increasing global natural and anthropogenic pressures have made the relationships between these elements more complex and fragile, thus posing great challenges to their supply–demand balance. In addition, land use, water resource allocation, energy supply, and food production security within the watershed, an integrated management unit, are critical to the overall sustainable development of the watershed. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to study the coupling of the land–water–energy–food (LWEF) system and the sustainable development of the watershed. An in-depth exploration of the inherent links between these elements will help formulate scientific and effective resource management policies, promote the high-efficiency utilization of resources, and achieve the coordinated development of the economy, society, and environment, thus promoting the sustainable development of the watershed.

The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) to give insights into the nexus between land, water, energy, and food and the mechanisms of the coupling of land, water, energy, and food on watersheds to promote their sustainability.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following themes:

• Land–water–energy–food nexus and coupling mechanisms;
• The sustainable development of watersheds;
• Climate change adaptation and regional resilience;
• Land use and watershed ecosystems;
• Water supply and management;
• The energy transition and carbon mitigation;
• Food security and supply;
• Resource, environmental, and regional high-quality development;
• Spatial governance and the planning of watersheds.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Prof. Dr. Wei Sun
Prof. Dr. Xiaojun Wang
Prof. Dr. Dongliang Zhao
Prof. Dr. Kun Yu
Dr. Zhifeng Jin
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. Land 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.

• land–water–energy–food nexus
• climate change adaptation
• regional resilience
• land use transformation
• energy transition
• resource management
• resources and environment
• water–energy–food
• carbon peak and neutrality
• spatial governance and planning