Smart Forest Inventory, Management and Planning: Intelligent Technologies and Their Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Forest resources play a fundamental role in maintaining global ecological balance, with functions including carbon sink regulation, climate buffering, soil and water conservation, and biodiversity maintenance. Natural forests, as core elements of natural ecosystems, play a crucial role in resisting climate change and extreme events; planted forests contribute significantly to wood supply, protective forest construction, and ecological restoration; and economic forests bridge ecological and economic benefits, and are an important component in promoting agricultural modernization and rural revitalization.

However, in recent years, due to global warming, frequent extreme weather events, the spread of pests and diseases, and excessive development and utilization of land by humans, the degradation rate of forest ecosystems has accelerated, and the risks they face have increased. The traditional model of forestry inventory and management, which relies on manual field surveys and empirical planning, does not meet the requirements of sustainable forestry development in terms of accuracy, spatial coverage, and dynamic update capabilities.

Meanwhile, the rapid development of intelligent technologies, such as remote sensing, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), LiDAR, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and big data analysis, has led to significant advancements in the investigation, monitoring, management, and planning of forest resources. These technologies not only overcome the limitations of traditional investigations in terms of speed and scale, but also provide intelligent and refined solutions for dynamic forest monitoring, carbon stock estimation, early disaster warning, and spatial planning, thus bringing forestry science into a new era of digitalization, networking, and intelligence.

This Special Issue aims to systematically identify and present the latest progress in intelligent technologies and their typical applications in forest inventory, management, and planning. By integrating research achievements from interdisciplinary fields such as forestry science, geographic information science, artificial intelligence, remote sensing technology, and big data, it explores effective integration and collaborative applications of emerging technologies, thereby promoting the deep integration of forest science and modern information technology. This Special Issue focuses on the investigation and monitoring, intelligent management, and spatial optimization of three types of forest systems—natural forests, planted forests, and economic forests—aiming to build a platform that covers data collection, intelligent analysis, and decision support. Its ultimate goal is to provide a cutting-edge scientific basis and practical guidance for the sustainable management of global forest resources, the implementation of carbon neutrality strategies, ecosystem restoration, and climate change responses.

• Cutting-edge research:

For this Special Issue, we seek papers on the following:

1. Intelligent forest inventory and monitoring methods integrating multi-source remote sensing, LiDAR, and ground observation;
2. High-precision estimation of forest biomass and carbon storage and regional/global-scale carbon sink assessment;
3. Automated identification of and intelligent early warning systems for diseases, pests, and natural disturbances based on deep learning;
4. Construction of forestry information platforms and IoT perception systems and improvements in their real-time monitoring capabilities;
5. Application and utilization of artificial intelligence and deep learning models for classification, prediction, and planning optimization;
6. Exploration of digital twin and virtual simulation in forest management, ecological restoration, and landscape pattern design;
7. Application and evaluation of intelligent methods in assessing the response forests to climate change and achieving carbon neutrality.

• What kind of papers we are soliciting:

1. This Special Issue welcomes high-quality original research papers, systematic reviews, and practical case studies covering, but not limited to, the following:
2. Forest inventory, resource monitoring, and dynamic update studies based on advanced technologies such as remote sensing, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and LiDAR;
3. Innovative methods for biomass and carbon storage estimation, pest and disease monitoring, and natural disturbance assessment, as well as their applications;
4. Exploration, verification, and practical cases of intelligent forest management and information-based management models;
5. Comprehensive application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and intelligent algorithms in forest resource planning, ecological restoration, and spatial optimization;
6. Interdisciplinary integration of artificial intelligence and deep learning in forestry management, prediction, and optimization;
7. Advancements in and potential applications of digital twins, virtual simulations, and multi-dimensional data fusion in the intelligent management of forest systems.

Dr. Zixuan Qiu
Prof. Dr. Zhongke Feng
Dr. Huiqing Pei
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 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.

• smart forestry
• remote sensing
• UAV
• LiDAR
• IoT
• forest management
• forest biomass and carbon stock estimation
• deep learning
• GIS
• digital twin