Dear Colleagues,

It is a great pleasure to announce the upcoming conference “The 1st International Electronic Conference on Land —Towards Land System Science”, to take place virtually on 17—19 May 2022.

Conference topics we intend to address are the philosophy and key (inter- and transdisciplinary) methodological approaches of land system sciences. We want to shed a light on advances in key research areas, such as land use and land use planning, modeling from ecosystem to landscape and global scales, scaling effects, impacts of global and climate change on land systems and their resilience, global trends, such as urbanization and biodiversity losses and integrative approaches connected with the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Aichi Targets and the Paris Agreement. Instruments, such as the European Landscape Convention, and their relevance for protecting and restoring cultural landscapes, the natural heritage and diversity of land systems are expected to be discussed. Other relevant governance instruments and governance mixes that translate land system science outputs into policies and conventions will be debated regarding their efficiency and success and regarding how to further develop them, for instance, in the light of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and its expected outcomes and impacts.

This meeting aims to bring together the LAND community in its widest sense to discuss these latest advances, with sessions on land system science advances and their societal relevance chaired by leading researchers from across the globe.

In the interests of safety, given the present COVID-19 situation, we have decided to bring the conference to a fully online format. The conference will proceed on the same dates with the same fantastic speakers.

Importantly, we aim to select a high number of oral presentations from early-stage researchers, from their submitted abstracts.

We look forward to seeing you online!

IECL2022 Chair

Prof. Dr. Christine Fürst is the Editor-in-Chief of Land. She is the professor for Sustainable Landscape Development, Martin-Luther University Halle, Germany. Her main research interests currently lie in integrative landscape modeling and impact assessment by means of a system of systems and in participatory decision processes in urban and regional spatial planning. Her regional research focus lies beyond Europe, in West Africa and Latin America.