Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is proposed with the aim of promoting contributions dealing with the principal role of soils supporting rainfed agriculture. In the context of climate change, sustainable agricultural practices demand resilient soils to minimize the effect of increasing temperatures and rainfall variability, which affect yields and therefore threaten global food security. This is especially relevant in drylands worldwide, including Mediterranean and semiarid agroecosystems, where soil degradation due to organic carbon decrease is a widespread concern. In this regard, among the effects of agronomic relevance, decrease in fertility and water holding capacity, as well as loss of structure can be highlighted. In addition, the loss by erosion of the key horizons regarding soil resilience (mostly A and B horizons), makes the recovery of degraded soils even more difficult. Satellite-scale monitoring is a main tool to globally assess these processes, and therefore is a basis for making relevant decisions on soil conservation policies. However, the degradation processes of agricultural soils may not be evident, which makes it necessary to insist on the search and assessment of effective indicators of these processes, especially early indicators, that can be monitored by remote sensing. Manuscripts related to the aforementioned topics will be gratefully considered for publication.

Dr. Manuel Rodríguez-Rastrero
Dr. Alicia Palacios-Orueta
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 monthly 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.

• mediterranean agricultural soils
• semiarid agricultural soils
• dryland farming
• soil organic carbon loss
• soil erosion impacts on farming
• soil salinization impacts on farming
• satellite-scale monitoring of soil degradation