Remote Sensing of Forest Disturbance

Dear Colleagues,

Disturbances, such as fire and harvest, shape forests, both at the stand and ecosystem levels. Rates and severity of disturbance affect many ecological functions, including carbon storage, habitat value, and hydrology. At the same time, much of what we do as land managers involves disturbance, whether the goal is resource extraction, manipulation of stand structure and composition, or simply conversion to another land use. Remote sensing methods are well suited to the challenge of studying disturbance impacts because they: (1) provide near real-time coverage; (2) capture both rare and transitory events unlikely to be picked up by ground samples; and (3) offer spatially explicit historical perspective, going back 45 years in some cases.

Exciting advances are occurring in the field of remotely sensed forest disturbance detection, involving: sensor fusion; new and increasingly institutionalized applications; characterization of type and magnitude of change; improvement to computing and data system resources; and more sophisticated time series analysis. This Special Issue of Forests will highlight both new techniques and new applications. Research may take place anywhere in the world, using any combination of sensors, but must represent fundamental advances in how remotely sensed data are used. Application of established methods in new areas is not within the issue’s scope. All manuscripts must address validation and uncertainty. Submissions are welcomed until 2 June, 2017.

Dr. Sean P. Healey
Dr. Warren B. Cohen
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.