Announcements

MDPI’s Young Investigator Awards recognize promising junior researchers, acknowledge their contributions, and enhance communication among scientists. We are proud to present the winners for the year 2021 in the “Environmental & Earth Sciences” category. The winners were selected by the journals’ editors.

We warmly congratulate the awarded young investigators for their outstanding contributions. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Atmosphere:

• Shaojie Song, Harvard University, USA

Clean Technologies:

• Francesco Galiano, Institute on Membrane Technology of the National Research Council, Italy

Energies:

• Qilin Wang, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
• Christopher H. T. Lee, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

• Grace Vincent, Central Queensland University, Australia

Minerals:

• Antony Burnham, Australian National University, Australia

Remote Sensing:

• Celso Henrique Leite Silva Junior, National Institute for Space Research – INPE, Brasil; Agricultural Engineering Department of the State University of Maranhão – UEMA, Brazil

Sustainability:

• Baojie He, Chongqing University, China

Water:

• Stefanos Giannakis, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain

In order to acknowledge our reviewers, who so generously dedicate their time to reviewing papers and demonstrate diligence, professionalism, and timeliness when reviewing manuscripts, MDPI journals regularly offer outstanding reviewer awards to scholars who participate in the peer-review process.

We are proud to recognize winners for the year 2021 in the “Environmental & Earth Sciences” category for their outstanding contributions among extensive competition by presenting them with an Outstanding Reviewer Award.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the winners on their achievement. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Atmosphere:

• Hristo Chervenkov, National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, Bulgaria
• Jouni Räisänen, University of Helsinki, Finland

Climate:

• Piotr F. Borowski, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland

Energies:

• Elena Lucchi, Institute for Renewable Energy, Italy
• Marcin Dębowski, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland
• Miroslav Variny, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia
• Piotr F. Borowski, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland
• Vedran Mrzljak, University of Rijeka, Croatia

Forests:

• Tomasz Oszako, Forest Research Institute, Poland
• Stelian Alexandru Borz, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
• Maricar Aguilos, North Carolina State University, USA
• Narayan Bhusal, Seoul National University, South Korea

Geosciences:

• Dave Waters, University of Oxford, UK

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

• Anuli Njoku, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
• Haruna Musa Moda, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
• Jesús Molina-Mula, University of BalearicIsland, Spain
• Katharina Diehl, Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
• Katarzyna Tomaszek, Pedagogical University of Kracow, Poland
• Matteo Nioi, University of Cagliari, Italy
• Pablo A. Cantero-Garlito, Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, Spain
• Seoyong Kim, Ajou University, South Korea
• Andrzej Adamski, University of Information Technology and Management, Poland
• Adrian Curto, Faculty of Medicine, University of Salamanca, Spain
• Arkaitz Castañeda Babarro, University of Deusto, Spain
• Álvaro Francisco Lopes De Sousa, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
• Agata Gabryelska, Medical University of Lodz, Poland
• Ana Reyes Menéndez, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain
• Bartosz Dalewski, Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Poland
• Chong Chen, Yamaguchi University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan
• Carla Maria Batista Ferreira Pires, CBIOS-Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias-Escola de Ciências e Tecnologias da Saúde, Portugal
• Claudia Pisanu, University of Cagliari, Italy
• Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, USA
• Faisal F. Hakeem, King’s College London, UK
• Francisco Javier Fernández Carrasco, Punta de Europa Hospital, Spain
• Haewon Byeon, Inje University, South Korea
• HuiJun Chih, Curtin University, Australia
• Jerónimo Aragón Vela, University of Granada, Spain
• Joana Costa, University of Aveiro, Portugal,
• Joanne Lloyd, University of Wolverhampton, UK
• José Luis Romero-Bejar, University of Granada, Spain
• Laura Nathans, Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State Scranton, USA
• Mateusz Jankowski, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education, Poland
• Matteo Riccò, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Italy
• Nicola Döring, Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany
• Nora Suleiman-Martos, University of Granada, Spain
• Russell Kabir, Anglia Ruskin University, UK
• Roy McConkey, University of Ulster, UK
• Sunhee Kim, Ajou University, South Korea
• Sol García-Germán, Centro de Estudios e Investigación para la Gestión de Riesgos Agrarios y Medioambientalesdisabled, Spain
• Sebastian Rutkowski, Opole University of Technology, Poland
• Tamás Berki, University of Szeged, Hungary
• Terence Moriarty, University of Northern Iowa, USA
• Pedro Antonio Martín Cervantes, University of Almería, La Cañada de San Urbano, Spain

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information:

• Lemenkova Polina, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Andrew Newton, Nottingham Trent University, UK
• Dennis Edler, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
• Lukáš Herman, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
• Marcela Bindzarova Gergelova, Technical University of Kosice, Slovakia

Land:

• Rahul Datta, Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic
• Dirk H.R. Spennemann, Charles Sturt University, Australia
• Raimundo Jimenez-Ballesta, (Retired recently) Autonoma University of Madrid, Spain

Remote Sensing:

• Veraldo Liesenberg, Santa Catarina State University, Brazil
• Yady Tatiana Solano-Correa, University of Cauca, Colombia
• Francesco Marinello, University of Padova, Italy
• Pedro Melo-Pinto, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal
• Ignacio Bosch, Universitat Politènica de València, Spain
• Juan Soria, University of Valencia, Spain
• Chiman Kwan, Signal Processing, Inc., USA
• Benoit Vozel, University of Rennes, France
• Giuseppe Casula, National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology Unit of Bologna, Italy
• Simone Cosoli, The University of Western Australia, Australia

Resources:

• Maria Economou-Eliopoulos, University of Athens, Greece

Toxics:

• Cynthia Rider, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, USA

We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2021 Travel Awards in the “Environmental & Earth Sciences” category for their outstanding presentations and to present them with the prize.

MDPI journals regularly offer travel awards to encourage talented junior scientists to present their latest research at academic conferences in specific fields, which helps to increase their influence.

The winners mentioned below were carefully selected by the journal editors based on an outline of their research and the work to be presented at an academic conference.

We would like to warmly congratulate the Travel Awards winners for the year 2021 and wish them the greatest success with their future research endeavors. MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Atmosphere:

• Charbel Harb, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, USA
• Jibran Khan, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark

Climate:

• Agostino Niyonkuru Meroni, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
• Platon Patlakas, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Energies:

• Nnaemeka Vincent Emodi, University of Tasmania, Australia
• Irene Poza-Casado, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain

Forests:

• Pipiet Larasatie, Oregon State University, USA
• Tania L. Maxwell, French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), France

Hydrology:

• Georgia Papacharalampous, Roma Tre University, Italy
• Mattei Alexandra, University of Corsica, France

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

• Danila Azzolina, University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy
• Kelvin Fong, Yale University, USA
• Levi Frehlich, University of Calgary, Canada‎
• Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, Imperial College London, UK

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information:

• Junghwan Kim, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
• Xuke Hu, Institute of Data Science, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany

Land:

• Álvaro Castilla Beltrán, University of La Laguna, Spain
• Lauren Nerfa, University of Hawaiʻi, USA

Remote Sensing:

• Amen Al-Yaari, Sorbonne University, France
• Meng Lu, Utrecht University, Netherlands

Resources:

• Alessandro Lenci, University of Bologna, Italy
• Evangelia Georgantzia, Liverpool John Moores University, UK

Sustainability:

• Sayyed Rasoul Khayyam Nekouei, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia
• Georgia A. Papacharalampous, Roma Tre University, Italy
• Raquel Filipa da Costa Viveiros, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal
• Rajesh Pathak, South Dakota State University, USA

Water:

• Nnanake-Abasi Okon Offiong, University of Uyo, Nigeria
• Tonni Agustiono Kurniawan, Polytechnic of Health, Indonesia
• Shawna Andrea Foo, Arizona State University, USA

The purpose of our Best Paper Awards is to promote and recognize the most impactful contributions published within MDPI journals.

The editors of each journal carefully selected reviews and research papers through a rigorous judging process based on criteria such as the scientific merit, overall impact, and the quality of presentation of the papers published in the journal last year.

We are honored to present the winners in the subject areas of “Environmental & Earth Sciences”, who were selected amongst extensive competition, and congratulate the authors for their outstanding scientific publications.

MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Geosciences:

• “Distinguishing between Deep-Water Sediment Facies: Turbidites, Contourites and Hemipelagites”
  by Dorrik Stow and Zeinab Smillie
  Geosciences 2020, 10(2), 68. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences10020068
• “Review of Explosive Hydrovolcanism”
  by Károly Németh and Szabolcs Kósiks
  Geosciences 2020, 10(2), 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences10020044

Remote Sensing:

• “A Review on Deep Learning Techniques for 3D Sensed Data Classification”
  by David Griffiths and Jan Boehm
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(12), 1499. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11121499
• “Satellite Remote Sensing of Precipitation and the Terrestrial Water Cycle in a Changing Climate”
  by Vincenzo Levizzani and Elsa Cattani
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(19), 2301. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11192301
• “Evaluation of Different Machine Learning Methods and Deep-Learning Convolutional Neural Networks for Landslide Detection”
  by Omid Ghorbanzadeh, Thomas Blaschke, Khalil Gholamnia, Sansar Raj Meena, Dirk Tiede and Jagannath Aryal
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 196. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020196
• “An Integrated View of Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Changes Based on Models and Satellite Observations”
  by Ruth Mottram, Sebastian B. Simonsen, Synne Høyer Svendsen, Valentina R. Barletta, Louise Sandberg Sørensen, Thomas Nagler, Jan Wuite, Andreas Groh, Martin Horwath, Job Rosier, Anne Solgaard, Christine S. Hvidberg and Rene Forsberg
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(12), 1407. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11121407
• “UAV-Based High Resolution Thermal Imaging for Vegetation Monitoring, and Plant Phenotyping Using ICI 8640 P, FLIR Vue Pro R 640, and thermoMap Cameras”
  by Vasit Sagan, Maitiniyazi Maimaitijiang, Paheding Sidike, Kevin Eblimit, Kyle T. Peterson, Sean Hartling, Flavio Esposito, Kapil Khanal, Maria Newcomb, Duke Pauli, Rick Ward, Felix Fritschi, Nadia Shakoor and Todd Mockler
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(3), 330. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11030330

Toxics:

• “A Review of Biomonitoring of Phthalate Exposures”
  by Wang, Yu, Hongkai Zhu and Kurunthachalam Kannan
  Toxics 2019, 7(2), 21; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics7020021
• “Trace Element Uptake by Herbaceous Plants from the Soils at a Multiple Trace Element-Contaminated Site”
  by Nworie, Obinna E., Junhao Qin and Chuxia Lin
  Toxics 2019, 7(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics7010003

Water:

• “Water Quality Indices: Challenges and Application Limits in the Literature”
  by Moez Kachroud, Fabienne Trolard, Mohamed Kefi, Sihem Jebari and Guilhem Bourrié
  Water 2019, 11(2), 361. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11020361
• “A Brief Review of Random Forests for Water Scientists and Practitioners and Their Recent History in Water Resources”
  by Hristos Tyralis, Georgia Papacharalampous and Andreas Langousis
  Water 2019, 11(5), 910. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11050910
• “The Use of Non-Conventional Water Resources as a Means of Adaptation to Drought and Climate Change in Semi-Arid Regions: South-Eastern Spain”
  by Álvaro-Francisco Morote, Jorge Olcina and María Hernández
  Water 2019, 11(1), 93. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11010093
• “Hydrological Effectiveness of an Extensive Green Roof in Mediterranean Climate” 
  by Stefania Anna Palermo, Michele Turco, Francesca Principato and Patrizia Piro
  Water 2019, 11(7), 1378. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11071378
• “Forecasting Groundwater Table in a Flood Prone Coastal City with Long Short-term Memory and Recurrent Neural Networks”
  by Benjamin D. Bowes, Jeffrey M. Sadler, Mohamed M. Morsy, Madhur Behl and Jonathan L. Goodall
  Water 2019, 11(5), 1098. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11051098
• “Effectiveness of Rainwater Harvesting Systems for Flood Reduction in Residential Urban Areas”
  by Gabriele Frenib and Lorena Liuzzo
  Water 2019, 11(7), 1389. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11071389

The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Landscape Ecology” in Land (ISSN 2073-445X, IF 3.398).

Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard is a Full Professor of Physical Geography and a Director at the Institute of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology at Leibniz University, Hannover. He is a geographer with a Ph.D. in ecology and is involved in many international and national projects, research initiatives and networks. His main research focus is on landscape ecology, mapping of ecosystem service supply and demand, and applications in environmental management. He is Co-Chair at the Ecosystem Services Partnership ESP and Vice President of the International Association of Landscape Ecology IALE.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard, who shared his vision for the Section with us as well as his views on the research area:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?
I like the open access strategy of the journal, relatively modest pricing and comparably quick article processing times.

2. What is your vision for the Section?
To be attractive for contributions from traditional as well as modern fields of landscape ecological research that deal with urgent questions of human–environmental interactions.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like, in your view?
Landscape ecology is a very traditional field of science, and relevant knowledge on the subject is urgently needed in times of increasing environmental problems and landscape degradation. Here, I think emerging transdisciplinary approaches and modern methods such as modelling, spatial sciences and big data analyses will increasingly push landscape ecology forward.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?
Open Access is urgently needed in order to make scientific outcomes available to anyone who is interested. Article Processing Charges need to be affordable for people from all countries while covering the publishers’ expenses.

5. Who should contribute to this Section?
Anyone dealing with landscapes, no matter the scales or types they are interested in.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard as the Section Editor-in-Chief of “Landscape Ecology”, and we look forward to achieving many milestones under his leadership.

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X) is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil–sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modeling and data processing, ecosystem services, multifunctionality and sustainability, etc., published monthly online by MDPI. It is the only open access journal covering all aspects of land science, indexed within Scopus, SSCI (Web of Science), AGRICOLA, AGRIS, GeoRef, RePEc, and many other databases. Land has received an increased CiteScore (2020 Scopus data) of 3.0, and its 2020 Impact Factor is 3.398.

Land’s new Section “Land Innovations—Data and Machine Learning” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/sections/land_innovations_data_machine_learning) is now recruiting Editorial Board Members.

The main responsibilities of the Section Editorial Board Members are as follows:

• Pre-screening and making decisions on new submissions related to the journal Section;
• Helping to edit a Special Issue on a topic related to the Section (or supervising Special Issues related to your research field);
• Providing input or feedback regarding journal policies;
• Helping to promote the journal among peers or at conferences;
• Attending Board Meetings to suggest journal development strategies;
• Reviewing manuscripts.

This position is open to experts in all aspects of data science related to land. To apply for this position, recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) or Vivi Wang (vivi.wang@mdpi.com).

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Francesca Cigna has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the newly established Section “Landscape Archaeology” in Land (ISSN 2073-445X, IF 3.398).

Dr. Francesca Cigna, an environmental engineer with a Ph.D. in Earth sciences, is a senior researcher in Earth observation at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Research Council of Italy. She has extensive experience in satellite remote sensing, GIS, radar image processing, change detection methods and big data analytics. Her main research areas of investigation are mapping and monitoring natural and anthropogenic hazards in urban and rural environments, ground instability, land changes, landscape archaeology and cultural heritage applications.

The following is a short Q&A with Dr. Francesca Cigna, who shared her vision for the Section with us, as well as her views of the research area:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?

Since its launch in 2012, Land has rapidly demonstrated that there is an active and vibrant research community working on a broad range of topics related to land systems and landscapes, yet not so many international journals offer a valuable outlet to publishing these topics through an efficient peer-reviewing and editorial process. Reputation and impact of Land have grown over the past years, enabling a high positioning of the journal within the Environmental Science subject area. The journal therefore offers a good environment to collect high quality studies and discussions in the field, and there is no doubt that this represents a stimulating opportunity for me to contribute to the journal’s goals and objectives as the Editor-in-Chief of one of its thematic Sections.

2. Can you briefly introduce your current research work in landscape archaeology?

As an Earth observation scientist, I look at the topic from a technical perspective, trying to investigate how remote sensing data, image analysis methodologies and digital technologies can address scientific questions and research goals by providing valuable information on characteristics and evolution of past archaeological landscapes, from the regional to the more local scale. Big data, enhanced imaging resolutions, open access archives and cloud platforms are the resources that I exploit the most in this field, with a look to investigating semi-arid regions and catchments in South America and human-impacted Mediterranean landscapes and sites in the current context of urbanization and anthropogenic site disturbance.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?

The future of this research field looks like a lot of fun! Whilst we will surely continue to use well-established on-site surveying and investigation methods, technological development will continue to enable an increasing number of new opportunities, in terms of both data acquisition instrumentation types and sensing capabilities, and novel approaches for semi-automated data classification, machine and deep learning, artificial intelligence and advanced digital technologies. Curiosity and research questions will lead the way in the upcoming years, with the community making the best out of novel data and methods to address fundamental and new questions with original, prototyping and pioneering approaches and workflows.

4. What is your vision for the Section?

In my vision, the launch of this new Section of Land, fully dedicated to landscape archaeology, is the first step towards the consolidation of this research field with a body of high-impact literature that will also contribute to an even brighter future for the journal more widely. I am keen to open the doors of the Section to highly motivated early career scientists and young researchers to contribute as authors and/or editors (e.g., through the Special Issue Mentor Program) to enable the development and embedding of novel ideas and the launch of new thematic volumes on “hot topics” and recent discoveries.

5. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?

Nowadays, Open Access principles and practices are among the most welcomed features in scientific publishing. As an author, I have experienced a much wider dissemination and often higher impact of my open access research papers across the community, even reaching out to practitioners and specialists outside the university or major research institutions who might not have access to journal subscriptions. Further development of the principles of Open Access in this field will likely stimulate faster and more widespread scientific exchange and development.

We warmly welcome Dr. Francesca Cigna to her new role as Section Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to her leading Land to many more milestones.

In February 2022, the Urban Land Institute (ULI) chose Land (ISSN: 2073-445X) as its preferred journal and became an affiliated society member. As part of this collaboration, all members of ULI will benefit a discount on the article processing charge (APC) when submitting articles to Land.

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) is a professional organization whose functions are highly relevant to the scope of Land.

We look forward to collaborating with ULI and publishing state-of-the-art research from its members in this field.

Land is currently recruiting Editors-in-Chief for the following sections:

• “Soil–Sediment–Water Systems”;
• “Land Environmental and Policy Impact Assessment”;
• “Water, Energy, Land and Food (WELF) Nexus”;
• “Land—Observation and Monitoring”.

Land (ISSN: 2073-445X, Impact Factor 3.398) is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land system science, landscape, soil–sediment–water systems, urban study, land–climate interactions, water–energy–land–food (WELF) nexus, biodiversity research and health nexus, land modelling and data processing, ecosystem services, and multifunctionality and sustainability etc., published monthly online by MDPI. The International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), European Land-use Institute (ELI), Landscape Institute (LI) and Urban Land Institute (ULI) are affiliated with Land, and their members receive a discount on the article processing charge.

The Section Editor-in-Chief is a leader in their particular field of research, and is responsible for maintaining the scientific quality of a particular section of a journal. The Section Editor-in-Chief is expected to oversee the growth and development of the journal Sections and its board members. The initial term is for 2 years, which entails the following:

• Acting as an ambassador for the journal, MDPI and Open Access publishing;
• Making scientific decisions about the scope of their Section;
• Inviting distinguished scientists to join the Editorial Board;
• Suggesting topics for Special Issues;
• Providing support and guidance to Editorial Board Members and editorial staff when required;
• Maintaining oversight of the editorial process for individual manuscripts in their Section (mainly by making the final decision regarding whether or not a paper can be published after peer-review and revisions);
• Understanding, leading and upholding MDPI’s peer review guidelines and ethics guidelines.

To apply for this position (in one of our sections), recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Land Editorial Office (land@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position.

Land Editorial Office