Response of Agroecosystem Carbon–Water Cycling and Crop Spatial Patterns to Environmental Change: Mechanisms and Adaptive Management

Dear Colleagues,

Global environmental changes, driven by climate variability and anthropogenic activities, are reshaping agroecosystem and crop patterns, with cascading impacts on carbon–water (C-W) cycles. Alterations in temperature, precipitation extremes, and land-use practices disrupt vegetation dynamics, soil carbon sequestration, and hydrological processes, creating feedback loops that threaten ecosystem resilience and agricultural productivity. While advances in remote sensing and modeling have improved our understanding of these interactions, critical gaps persist in quantifying how shifting vegetation–agroecosystem configurations (e.g., crop diversification, afforestation, or land fragmentation) modulate C-W synergies or trade-offs under heterogeneous stressors. Additionally, the nonlinear responses of coupled biogeochemical–hydrological processes to compound drivers (e.g., droughts, CO2 fertilization, and management interventions) remain poorly resolved.

This Special Issue synthesizes interdisciplinary research to unravel mechanisms linking environmental change, landscape reorganization, and C-W cycle dynamics, aiming to inform and support the development of scalable strategies for sustainable intensification, climate adaptation, and nature-based solutions. This Special Issue will offer a comprehensive review of the latest research on the monitoring of agroecosystem structures, agricultural ecological hydrology, and ecosystem carbon–water cycles using machine learning, remote sensing technology, and ecological model simulation. We invite authors to submit review articles, original research articles, or short communications on topics related to spatiotemporal change monitoring and the driving mechanisms of agroecosystem structures and carbon–water processes featuring applications of machine learning or remote sensing technology. As Guest Editors, we look forward to reviewing your contributions to this Special Issue. The specific topics of this Special Issue will include (but are not limited to) the following:

• remote sensing crop monitoring;
• ecosystem carbon–water process;
• agricultural ecological hydrology;
• driving mechanisms of ecosystem change.

Dr. Yangyang Liu
Dr. Wei Zhang
Guest Editors

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