Vegetation Change at Multiple Time Scales under Climate Change and Human Activities

Dear Colleagues,

Vegetation absorbs one-fifth of the carbon from the atmosphere every year. The achievement of ‘carbon neutrality’ will require contributions of carbon uptake from vegetation. Since the early 1970s, numerous studies based on remote sensing technologies have reported great changes in vegetation greenness, carbon sink, phenology and so on. Vegetation changes are jointly driven by climatic and environmental changes and human activities such as afforestation. Previously, climatic controls on vegetation changes were well studied, while a few studies investigated the interactive effects of human activities and climate change. Recent studies have suggested that human activities such as ecological projects may dominate vegetation changes in some areas. In the meantime, vegetation changes include variations at multiple timescales, such as interannual variation and long-term trends. It is thus urgent to deepen our understanding of the underlying driving mechanisms of vegetation change at multiple timescales to deal with ongoing global warming.

This Special Issue focuses on vegetation changes as well as the emerging platforms and techniques in the studies of vegetation changes. We encourage the submission of manuscripts that address but are not limited to understanding vegetation changes, ecological processes, and the interactions between climate change and human activity. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

• Response of vegetation to climate change and human activities;
• Driving mechanisms and ecological processes;
• Long-term trends and interannual variation;
• Application of new techniques and analysis methods.

We invite research articles related to vegetation change and its driving mechanisms, which can help us to better understand the dynamics and the response of vegetation to current and future climate change.

Dr. Mingyang Zhang
Dr. Huiyu Liu
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.