We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Giacomo Alessandro Gerosa has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Forest Meteorology and Climate Change” in Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907).

Giacomo Alessandro Gerosa is a full professor of atmospheric physics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, campus of Brescia, Italy. He graduated in environmental sciences at the University of Milan and then obtained a Ph.D. in agricultural ecology at the same university. He was a researcher of agricultural chemistry and physics for the Catholic University for more than a decade and then an associate professor of atmospheric physics, with a teaching assignment of ecology and pollutant control in agricultural and forest ecosystems.

He is an atmospheric scientist and ecophysiologist with a particular interest in micrometeorology as it applies to agriculture, forest, and terrestrial ecology. For the past two decades, he has been measuring and modeling the exchange of carbon dioxide, water vapor, ozone, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and energy between the atmosphere and agriculture and forest ecosystems. He has participated in many international collaborative research projects and led some National and European projects.

He has published more than 100 scientific articles and some book chapters. Prof. Dr. Gerosa is the coordinator of the research group Environmental Physics and Ecophysiology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Brescia, Italy.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Giacomo Alessandro Gerosa, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views of the research area and open access publishing:

Forests is a dynamic journal where scientists from different backgrounds write and share their research. I was surprised by their offer to lead the Section “Forest Meteorology and Climate Change”. That’s a sign of openness to interdisciplinarity that I really appreciated.

Atmospheres support many biosphere processes, such as photosynthesis and respiration. A better understanding of the interactions between vegetation and the atmosphere, as well as of the related ecosystem services, is of vital interest to mankind in scenarios of climate change. I would like to create a section where foresters, ecophysiologists and meteorologists discuss ways to identify the best strategies for managing and adapting forests to environmental pollution and climate changes.

The collection of data with new measurement campaigns, even in forests located on complex terrain, and the accurate study of processes will contribute to the development of increasingly scientifically sound land-atmosphere models to predict and assess our planet's responses to ongoing climate change. It will also contribute to better management of water resources and air quality. 

Open access is a way to lower the costs of articles’ accessibility by researchers and practitioners in developing countries. At the same time, it is a way to avoid any monopolistic centralization of knowledge in a few large editorial groups, because it guarantees acceptable earnings even for small publishing houses. In both cases, it is a way to increase knowledge sharing around the world.

We wish him every success in his new position, and we look forward to his contributions to the journal.