Landscape Impacts on Ecosystem Service Values Using the Image Fusion Approach

The landscape is a complex mosaic of physical and biological patches with infrastructures, cultivable lands, protected ecosystems, water bodies, and many other landforms. Varying land-use changes are vulnerable to the world and need the mitigation and management of landforms to achieve sustainable development, which without proper oversight, may lead to habitat destruction, degradation, and fragmentation. In this study, we quantify the land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes using downscaled satellite imagery and assess their effects on ecosystem services (ES) and economic values in Ningxia Province, China. Various landscape metrics are derived to study the pattern and spatial configuration over 15 years (2005–2020), in which the landscapes are evolving. The impact of LULC change in various ES is analyzed using ecosystem service values (ESV) and validated with a sensitivity index. Finally, the level of urban sprawl (US) due to overpopulation is established using Renyi’s entropy. Using Landsat 8′s Operational Land Imager (OLI) datasets, we downscaled the MODIS data of 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020 to prepare the LULC map through a rotation forest algorithm. Results demonstrate that water bodies, woodlands, and built-up landscapes increased in their spatial distribution over time and that there was a decrease in farmlands. Results further suggest that the connectivity and uniformity of the landscape pattern improved in the later period due to several plans formulated by the government with a slight improvement in landscape diversity. Overall ESV get improved, while LULC classes such as farmland and water bodies have decreased and increased ESV, respectively, and a sensitivity analysis is used to test the reliability of ESV on LULC classes. The level of US is 0.91 in terms of Renyi’s entropy, which reveals the presence of a dispersion of settlements in urban fringes. The simulated US for 2025 shows urbanization is more severe over a prolonged time and finally the impacts of the US in ESV are analyzed. Using an interdisciplinary approach, several recommendations are formulated to maintain the ESV despite rapid LULC changes and to achieve sustainable development globally.

Sci: An Inclusive, Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal

Sci (ISSN 2413-4155) is an international, open-access journal that covers most fields of scientific research. It has set out to challenge the conventional single- and double-blind peer review processes by adopting a post-publication public peer review (P4R) model. The model faced some difficulties with indexing and archiving services, prolongated the peer review process and its transparency received some opposition. It was therefore necessary to revisit the P4R model and modify it, resulting in the hybrid model (P4R hybrid) which is implemented in Sci today. Sci remains open to the whole scientific community as an inclusive and multidisciplinary scientific journal. In this context, we present you with six valuable contributions to the first Special Issue of Feature Papers Editors Collection 2020. The topics of the contributions address relevant and compelling issues ranging from data protection, material science, COVID-19 to the environment and climate change.

Photovoltaic Solar Energy from Urban Sprawl: Potential for Poland

Urban sprawl is a process that shapes contemporary urban spaces. Generally, this process is associated with negative effects due to the generation of high costs. However, not all the effects of urban sprawl should be considered in the context of the increasing costs of the use of space; some of them should be regarded as cost cutting factors, for example, the possibility of the use of roofed areas in generating energy from sunlight. Solar energy is believed to be one of the sources of clean energy that reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. However, solar energy generation necessitates the development of large areas for the purpose of installing photovoltaic modules and substantial funds for creating large solar farms. For this reason, a significant role in state energy policies is played by small dispersed installations mounted on the roofs of buildings. There is a gap in existing research on the assessment of urban sprawl in terms of the potential use of rooftops for solar installations in suburban areas. This research gap has not yet been filled, either conceptually and methodologically. Hence, the contribution of the research to the development of the current state of knowledge involves the identification of economic and environmental benefits of usually negatively perceived urban sprawl. The proposal of a method for the identification of suburban housing potential for solar energy generation constitutes another addition to the state of knowledge. The main objective of this article is to analyse the energy generating potential of buildings located in suburban and urban areas characterised by the confirmed occurrence of urban sprawl phenomena. CityGML data were used to conduct an analysis of the exposure of roofs to sunlight using algorithms based on vector data. The authors estimated the dynamics of changes in time and referred the existing photovoltaic installations to the total potential of a selected area. The use of the energy potential of the analysed roofs of buildings was used to evaluate the external costs and benefits of spatial planning. The discussion presented the current conditions of the energy sector and energy policies in Poland and the EU. In addition, recommendations were proposed for local spatial policies concerning the mitigation of the effects of suburbanization in the context of developing the system of PV micro-installations.

Mumbai's business landscape: A spatial analytical approach to urbanisation

India has proven to be one of the most diverse and dynamic economic regions in the world. Its industry focuses predominantly on the service sector and immediate economic growth seems to steer India into the economic superpower. India's unique business landscape is felt at a regional level, where massive urbanization has become an unavoidable consequence of population growth and spatial allocation to the economic hubs of metropolitan cities. Mumbai, one of the world's largest cities, represents a unique combination of a diverse economic landscape and the growth of a megacity. The role of Mumbai in India's growth is of crucial importance for India's business landscape. This paper explores the massive urbanization processes of Mumbai's peri-urban areas and compares urban sprawl with the location of its business landscape. A spatial accounting methodology based on the proximity of Mumbai's different economic hubs will be used to measure the underlying pattern of the Mumbai region, concerning past and present urbanization, and the effect of this urbanization process has on the possible location of businesses. This business-urban ecosystem perspective will be implemented by a spatial analysis on the correlation between urban compactness and urban footprints, in relation to business concentration and its spatiotemporal evolution over the last hundred years.