Wood Quality, Smart Timber Harvesting, and Forestry Machinery

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue on “Wood Quality, Smart Timber Harvesting, and Forestry Machinery” invites contributions that improve operational efficiency, safety, and sustainability along the entire timber value chain. We welcome studies on forestry operations and timber harvesting that integrate time-to-movement analysis and productivity assessment to optimize cycles, reduce costs, and minimize environmental impact. Articles on forestry site management, encompassing planning, logistics, and decision support, including applications of sensorized machinery, GNSS/IMU tracking, digital twins, and AI-assisted planning, are encouraged. Contributions on wood technology that present methods for estimating wood quality, with a focus on non-destructive techniques (NDT), such as stress wave velocity, resistography, acoustic tomography, and dynamic MOE, and that link raw material properties to product performance, are welcome, as are studies targeting resilient wood supply chains under climate change and green economy. Finally, we encourage research on bioenergy and wood waste recovery, including cascading use, circular design, and low-carbon pathways. Both field experiments and modelling articles are welcome, as are case studies, protocols, and reviews that translate innovation into practice for sustainable and smart forestry.

Dr. Maria Francesca Cataldo
Dr. Salvatore F. Papandrea
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.