Informing Environmental Management through Landscape Perception

CALL FOR PAPERS

Informing Environmental Management through Landscape Perception

Journal: Journal of Environmental Management

Publisher: Elsevier

Submission Opens: 15 February 2026

Submission Deadline: 30 April 2027

Introduction

This Special Issue explores how people perceive different types of landscapes — urban, rural, natural, semi-natural, peri-urban, industrial, and everyday green spaces — and whether and how these perceptions influence environmental management.

While there is a rapidly growing body of work on climate adaptation, ecosystem services, and nature-based solutions, comparatively little is known about how different social groups perceive, value, and accept changes in various types of landscapes. Yet these perceptions strongly influence the success of environmental management — shaping public support for adaptation measures, behavioral change, and the long-term efficacy of planning decisions.

The Special Issue aims to demonstrate that people's perceptions are not a "soft" add-on — but a core component of effective environmental management. By foregrounding landscape perception across multiple landscape management typologies, it offers concrete concepts, evidence, and tools to design management strategies that are both environmentally robust and socially acceptable.

Scope & Significance

This Special Issue seeks to:

• Bring together interdisciplinary research on landscape perception

• Highlight how perceptual, aesthetic, and experiential dimensions of landscape can be translated for environmental management

• Provide evidence on how perceived benefits and trade-offs of landscape change impact acceptance of mitigation and adaptation strategies — from urban greening and flood-control measures to conservation and land-use transitions

• Integrate social, cultural, and psychological dimensions of landscape into environmental management frameworks currently dominated by physical and economic indicators

• Showcase methodological innovation to inform planning and management decisions

• Stimulate dialogue between researchers and practitioners so that landscape perception insights directly inform climate-resilient design, governance, and policy

List of Topic Areas

Manuscripts are invited on themes including, but not limited to:

1. Landscape perception across diverse landscape types — urban, rural, natural, semi-natural, peri-urban, industrial, and designed green spaces

2. Multisensory landscape assessment — soundscapes, smells, tactile qualities, and visual engagement

3. Aesthetic preferences, visual assessment, and landscape quality evaluation

4. Sense of place — genius loci and place attachment in environmental management

5. Perceived risks, safety, and landscape vulnerability

6. Equity and justice in access to high-quality landscapes

7. Public acceptance of landscape change — adaptation and mitigation strategies

8. Landscape perception and climate adaptation planning

9. Nature-based solutions — social acceptance and perceptual dimensions

10. Ecosystem services — perceived benefits and trade-offs across landscape types

11. Socio-ecological resilience and landscape perception linkages

12. Urban greening, flood control, and community perceptions

13. Conservation, land-use transitions, and rural landscape acceptance

14. Methodological innovations in landscape perception research

15. Cross-context comparison of landscape perceptions — highlands, lowlands, peri-urban, post-industrial

Guest Editors

Assoc. Prof. Tomasz Noszczyk University of Agriculture in Krakow, Poland 📧 tomasz.noszczyk@urk.edu.pl

Prof. Jon Calabria University of Georgia, USA 📧 jcalabr@uga.edu

Dr. Abreham Aneseyee Wolkite University, Ethiopia 📧 abreham.berta@wku.edu.et

Key Deadlines

📅 Manuscript Submission Opens: 15 February 2026 ⏰ Manuscript Submission Deadline: 30 April 2027

Submission Guidelines

Submit your manuscript through Editorial Manager, the official online submission system for the Journal of Environmental Management.

When submitting, select Article Type: "VSI: Landscape Perception" (Please select this item when submitting manuscripts online.)

All submissions will undergo peer review and be evaluated based on originality, significance, technical quality, and clarity.

⚠️ All submissions must be original and must not be under review elsewhere at the time of submission.

For author guidelines, visit the official Journal of Environmental Management page on the Elsevier ScienceDirect website.

About the Journal

The Journal of Environmental Management, published by Elsevier, is a leading international peer-reviewed journal with a CiteScore of 14.4 and Impact Factor of 8.4. It supports open access publishing and is dedicated to advancing the understanding and application of environmental management practices — providing a global platform for interdisciplinary research at the intersection of ecology, policy, planning, and socio-environmental systems.

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