Knowledge base on sustainability of land management practices and climate change resilience efforts

Abstract

This editorial introduces the Special Issue, Sustainability Dialogue: Land Management Practices and Climate Change Resilience Efforts, developed from a Summer School and journal call involving scholars and practitioners across the global sustainability community. Its articles provide multidisciplinary teaching and reference material linking land governance, ecological processes, climate risk, technology, and human behaviour across rural, urban, forest, agricultural, and river-basin settings. Governance studies show that resilience requires coordinated institutions, secure land access, and incentives for long-term stewardship. At the same time, social research explains how local knowledge, livelihoods, adoption, public services, and environmental justice shape intervention outcomes. Ecological studies examine biodiversity, wetlands, forests, soils, ecosystem services, carbon storage, and fragmentation, identifying practical pathways such as agroforestry, conservation agriculture, green infrastructure, nature-based solutions, urban forestry, and restoration, alongside trade-offs involving production, urbanisation, energy, property values, and carbon sequestration. Remote sensing, GIS, modelling, artificial intelligence, and scenario tools support hazard mapping, attribution, forecasting, and intervention planning. Evidence from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas links diagnosis, prediction, governance, finance, and implementation, advancing place-based, socially accountable, climate-resilient land management.