Response of Agroecosystem Carbon–Water Cycling and Crop Spatial Patterns to Environmental Change: Mechanisms and Adaptive Management
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Innovative Cropping Systems".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2026
Special Issue Editors
Interests: vegetation dynamic remote sensing monitoring; assessment of vegetation ecological service function; ecological hydrology and carbon water cycle
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: grassland ecosystem restoration effect and mechanism; ecosystem carbon nitrogen water cycle and its coupling process; biodiversity and ecosystem service function
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
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
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. Agronomy 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.
Keywords
- agroecosystem structure
- ecosystem carbon–water cycle
- machine learning
- remote sensing
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