Natural Hazards and Forest Ecosystems: A State-of-the-Art Review Collection
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Natural Hazards and Risk Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 111
Special Issue Editor
Interests: natural hazards; disturbances, remote sensing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Both natural and urban forests are increasingly exposed to natural hazards and disturbances such as wildfires, droughts, storms, pests, and compound or cascading events. These disturbances may have complex and significant impacts on forest structure, biodiversity, functions, carbon dynamics, and management planning. Natural hazards and the associated risks at various scales are exemplified by climate variability and extremes, as well as socioeconomic changes; therefore, improving the monitoring, assessment, and management of different forest-related natural hazards, risks, and disturbances is a key challenge if we are to increase forest resilience and support sustainable forest management.
Consequently, this Special Issue aims to bring together state-of-the-art reviews that present progress and emerging advances in the understanding, mapping, risk assessment, monitoring, and management of forest hazards and disturbances.
Contributions are invited to that address, but need not be limited to, the following topics:
- Detection, mapping, and monitoring of forest disturbances and damages caused by natural hazards across spatial and temporal scales;
- Satellite Earth observation (EO), drones, and in situ sensors for forest hazard and disturbance monitoring;
- Integrated GIS-based and geospatial intelligence frameworks for hazard analysis and decision support regarding preparedness, response, and recovery in forest ecosystems;
- Artificial intelligence modeling approaches for risk assessment in forest ecosystems threatened by natural hazards;
- Compound and cascading natural hazards in forest environments;
- Operational applications and systems, including early warning systems and post-disturbance assessment tools;
- Policy and management frameworks for natural hazard risk management in forestry;
- Climate change and natural hazards in forest environments;
- Vulnerability and resilience of forest ecosystems under natural hazards;
- Impacts of natural hazards on forest functions and ecosystem services;
- Valuation of natural hazard impacts in forest ecosystems;
- Social innovation for addressing natural hazards in forestry.
Prof. Dr. Giorgos Mallinis
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.
Keywords
- disturbances
- climate change
- remote sensing
- natural hazards
- forest management
- risk assessment
- artificial intelligence
- GIS
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