Urban Regeneration: Challenges and Opportunities for the Landscape

Many aspects come into play when addressing urban regeneration issues, and various interventions are needed to ensure cities are resilient and prepared to respond to environmental, economic, and social challenges. Resilience is understood as a "cross-cutting condition" in the reorganisation of a city, as the ability to provide adaptive and timely responses to numerous challenges and adverse events. Land consumption, characterised by the expansion of artificial cover for residential, manufacturing, and infrastructure purposes, is a worrying trend globally. There is a need to monitor and formulate strategies to mitigate land consumption and safeguard ecosystem services. Only through joint actions will cities be prepared to address key land vulnerabilities exacerbated by climate change: drought and water scarcity, heat waves in urban areas, unconventional events, and hydrogeological risk. This Special Issue aims to identify contextual actions that can reduce land consumption, promote de-impermeabilization, and encourage re-naturalisation, focusing on enhancing ecosystem services in land use activities. Therefore, it focuses on understanding the contributions of ecosystem services, landscape restoration and green infrastructure for climate mitigation, and land use reduction in urban regeneration processes.