Applications of Data Science in Forestry

Dear Colleagues,

Forests play a key role in provision of several ecosystem services such as climate regulation, carbon storage, biodiversity support, etc., and, in recent decades, various pressures including climate change, pests, droughts, and wildfires have led to increasing forest mortality worldwide. These challenges highlight the need for tools to monitor forest health and to support effective and adaptive forest management. At the same time, the quantity of data on forests has grown significantly, including information from satellite imagery, forest inventories, sensor networks, and long-term ecological monitoring; however, much of this data remains underused or fragmented.

This Special Issue welcomes contributions that apply data science methods (e.g., machine learning, artificial intelligence, geospatial analysis, etc.) to advance forestry research and practice. We are particularly interested in studies that promote the release, integration, or reuse of large-scale forest datasets and contribute to making forest data more accessible and interoperable. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to, forest mortality detection and prediction, multi-source data integration, early warning system development, and decision support tools for forest management. Submissions focused on the valorization of existing datasets, methodological innovations, or applied case studies with relevance to forest policy and planning are particularly encouraged.

Dr. Antonio Jesús Pérez-Luque
Guest Editor

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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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. Forests 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.