Earth Observations for Water Sciences: New Results from Remote, Proximity and Citizen-Driven Monitoring

Dear Colleagues,

The purpose of this Special Issue is to highlight advances and breakthroughs in the use of innovative data sources within the diverse fields of water research.

The current availability of free and ready-to-use satellite datasets offers a unique opportunity to monitor processes involved in hydrology and water resource management from the local to the global scale. Other remote sensing tools (e.g., airborne sensors, UAVs, etc.) are now able to provide detailed local scale information, while the use of networks of proximity sensors is replacing many traditional monitoring procedures, thereby enabling unprecedent observational continuity at different temporal scales. More recently, the development of citizen-driven monitoring tools promoted by mobile technology is fostering novel yet unstructured data, allowing unprecedented opportunities to use crowdfunding for the full-scale monitoring of complex urban and natural environments and for the validation of remote datasets.

We aim to collect contributions on the recent progress in the use of sensors and products that may be useful to hydrologists and geoscientists, especially in regions where traditional data are scarce. Potential topics include but are not limited to the following, with closely related topics also welcome:

• monitoring of water-balance elements (e.g. precipitation, evaporation, evapotranspiration, groundwater recharge, water bodies storage, runoff, …);
• monitoring of hydrological and hydraulic variables (e.g. soil moisture, water depth, flow velocity, river discharge, …);
• hydraulic and hydroclimatic risk assessment and mitigation (e.g. floods and drought);
• water quality and water resources management;
• collection of data on surface waters (e.g. streams, lakes, marshes, …) and their characteristics (e.g. river channel width, depth, roughness, degree of tortuosity and braiding);
• advanced approaches (e.g. artificial intelligence, machine learning, data assimilation) for the integration of multisensor/multiresolution data.
• crowdsourcing and citizen science for integrating human sensor and behavioural mechanisms for improved knowledge, predictions and awareness in water resource and risk management.

We encourage authors to share their knowledge, experience, and achievements by submitting original research articles, reviews, recent advances, future trends and case studies.

Dr. Caterina Samela
Dr. Maria Lanfredi
Dr. Rosa Coluzzi
Prof. Dr. Fernando Nardi
Dr. Antonio Annis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• remote sensing
• water monitoring
• water balance
• water quality
• hydroclimatic risk
• citizen science
• crowdfunding
• data integration
• surface waters