Assessing Ecosystem Respiration in Global Carbon Cycle: Digital Application in Agriculture
A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Ecosystem, Environment and Climate Change in Agriculture".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 February 2026
Special Issue Editors
Interests: Soil respiration; Soil Health; Soil erosion; Global climate change; Soil carbon cycle
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: Climate change; Drought; Remote sensing; Vegetation; Remote sensing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Ecosystem respiration (Reco), a critical flux of carbon from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere, plays a key role in the global carbon cycle. Although agricultural landscapes are major contributors to carbon exchange, quantifying Reco in these systems remains challenging due to their high spatiotemporal variability. The emergence of digital technologies now offers promising avenues to overcome these limitations and enhance the accuracy of Reco estimation in agriculture.
This Special Issue aims to highlight innovative research on the assessment of ecosystem respiration in agricultural systems and its implications for the global carbon cycle. We are particularly interested in the application of digital technologies, including remote sensing, data synthesis, and artificial intelligence, to advance the monitoring, modeling, and understanding of Reco in agricultural landscapes. The scope of this Special Issue encompasses studies that leverage digital tools to enhance the spatiotemporal resolution, accuracy, and scalability of Reco estimates.
We will emphasize research that integrates multi-source data (e.g., from flux towers, satellites, and drones), employs machine learning and AI techniques, and develops novel digital approaches for quantifying Reco and its drivers. Key themes for consideration include the use of remote sensing to derive respiration-related proxies, the application of big data analytics for pattern recognition in heterogeneous agricultural systems, and the fusion of digital data with process-based models to improve predictions of carbon cycling under changing climate conditions.
We invite original research articles, reviews, and methodological papers. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: digital mapping of Reco using remote sensing; AI/ML applications for Reco prediction; data-model integration in agricultural carbon cycling; the impact of management practices on respiration; and the regional- and global-level scalability of field measurements. Interdisciplinary studies combining agronomy, ecology, data science, and remote sensing are particularly encouraged.
Dr. Jinshi Jian
Dr. Qianfeng Wang
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. Agriculture 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 2600 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.
Keywords
- Ecosystem respiration
- Soil respiration
- Global Change
- Machine Learning application
- Remote Sensing
- Agriculture
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