Remote Sensing Applications in Land Cover Changes and Associated Environmental Effects: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities

Dear Colleagues,

Land cover change is an ongoing process intertwined with changes in population dynamics, climate, and socio-economic factors. Nearly four-fifths of the global land surface has been altered by direct human activities, significantly impacting land–atmosphere interactions, biodiversity, hydrological processes, the carbon cycle, and therefore human well-being. With the dual influences of climate change and human activities, land cover changes are becoming increasingly complex, emphasizing the importance of studying land use and land cover changes from global to regional scales and their environmental impacts. Satellite remote sensing technology has emerged as a powerful tool for monitoring the dynamics of land cover changes at various scales and exploring the mechanisms behind them. However, current research based on remote sensing still exhibits some discrepancies, and the associated monitoring and analysis methods present challenges.

This Special Issue of Remote Sensing, “Remote Sensing Applications in Land Cover Changes and Associated Environmental Effects: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities,” aims to collect the latest advancements in remote sensing technologies and products for land cover change research and identify the impacts of human activities and climate change using various remote sensing techniques. The main areas include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Land cover changes in forests, grasslands, and urban areas;
• Vegetation degradation and biomass;
• Integrating remote sensing with other data sources for land cover change analysis;
• The impact of urbanization on environmental and climate change;
• The impacts of human activities and climate change on land cover change.

Prof. Dr. Mingjun Ding
Dr. Lanhui Li
Dr. Linshan Liu
Dr. Haiyan Zhang
Dr. Shoubao Geng
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• land cover change
• remote sensing
• climate change
• human activities
• human well-being