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Land
Special Issues
Land Use/Land Cover Mapping Changes Using Earth Observations Techniques
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Land Use/Land Cover Mapping Changes Using Earth Observations Techniques

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land – Observation and Monitoring".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2026 | Viewed by 1967

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Frédéric Frappart

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Guest Editor
INRAE, Bordeaux Sciences Agro, UMR 1391 ISPA, 33140 Villenave-d’Ornon, France
Interests: remote sensing; water cycle; carbon cycle; wetlands
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Lien Rodríguez López

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Guest Editor
Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad San Sebastián, Lientur 1457, Concepción 4030000, Chile
Interests: remote sensing; machine learning; land surfaces
Dr. Bertrand Ygorra

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Guest Editor
INRAE, Bordeaux Sciences Agro, UMR 1391 ISPA, 33140 Villenave-d’Ornon, France
Interests: remote sensing; land cover change; deforestation
Dr. Luc Bourrel

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Guest Editor
Géosciences Environnement Toulouse, UMR 5563, Université de Toulouse, CNRS-IRD-OMP-CNES, 31000 Toulouse, France
Interests: remote sensing; climatology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Land use and land cover (LULC) changes are of essential importance for urban planning, environmental management, and sustainable development. Deforestation and urban expansion are LULC changes that have significant impacts on global climate change, water distribution, surface processes, and resource management. Furthermore, climate change is exacerbating these changes by altering precipitation patterns, increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, and affecting biodiversity and ecosystems. Understanding these changes is essential for regional planning and ecosystem conservation. Reliable LULC data are essential for studies on various environmental and socio-economic issues such as migration, droughts, floods, and climate change. Therefore, accuracy in detecting and analysing these changes is very important for resource management and the mitigation of environmental impacts. In recent years, remote sensing has been identified as a crucial tool to determine LULC and monitor its changes.

The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) that give insights into how Earth Observations (EO) are essential for LULC and LULC changes.

This Special Issue welcomes manuscripts that cover the following themes:

  • New techniques to characterise LULC and its changes;
  • New types of EO and/or original combinations of EO to improve LULC estimates and their dynamics;
  • Original studies on LULC/LULC changes and their relationships with climate and/or anthropogenisation.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Frédéric Frappart
Dr. Lien Rodríguez López
Dr. Bertrand Ygorra
Dr. Luc Bourrel
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Land 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

  • land use
  • land cover
  • land use and land cover dynamics
  • passive and active remote sensing
  • artificial intelligence
  • spatio-temporal dynamics

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

26 pages, 6768 KiB  
Article
Historical Land Cover Dynamics and Projected Changes in the High Andean Zone of the Locumba Basin: A Predictive Approach Using Remote Sensing and Artificial Neural Network—Cellular Automata Model
by German Huayna, Victor Pocco, Edwin Pino-Vargas, Pablo Franco-León, Jorge Espinoza-Molina, Fredy Cabrera-Olivera, Bertha Vera-Barrios, Karina Acosta-Caipa, Lía Ramos-Fernández and Eusebio Ingol-Blanco
Land 2025, 14(7), 1442; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14071442 - 10 Jul 2025
Viewed by 244
Abstract
The conservation and monitoring of land cover represent crucial elements for sustainable regional development, especially in fragile high Andean ecosystems. This study evaluates the spatiotemporal changes in land use and land cover (LULC) in the Locumba basin over the period of 1984–2023. A [...] Read more.
The conservation and monitoring of land cover represent crucial elements for sustainable regional development, especially in fragile high Andean ecosystems. This study evaluates the spatiotemporal changes in land use and land cover (LULC) in the Locumba basin over the period of 1984–2023. A hybrid modeling approach combining artificial neural networks (ANN) and cellular automata (CA) was employed to project future changes for 2033, 2043, and 2053. The results reveal a significant reduction in glaciers and lagoons throughout the Locumba basin, with notable declines from 1984 to 2023, while vegetated areas, particularly grasslands and wetlands, experienced substantial expansion. Specifically, grasslands increased by 273.7% relative to their initial coverage, growing from 57.87 km2 in 1984 to over 220.31 km2 in 2023, with projections indicating continued growth to over 331.62 km2 by 2053. This multitemporal analysis provides crucial information for anticipating future land dynamics and underscores the urgent need for strategic conservation planning to mitigate the continued loss of strategic ecosystems in the high Andean region of Tacna. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use/Land Cover Mapping Changes Using Earth Observations Techniques)
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24 pages, 6224 KiB  
Article
Mapping Habitat Suitability of Migratory Birds During Extreme Drought of Large Lake Wetlands: Insights from Crowdsourced Geographic Data
by Xinggen Liu, Lyu Yuan, Zhiwen Li, Yuanyuan Huang and Yulan Li
Land 2025, 14(6), 1236; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14061236 - 9 Jun 2025
Viewed by 415
Abstract
Comprehending the alterations in wintering grounds of migratory birds amid global change and anthropogenic influences is pivotal for advancing wetland sustainability and ensuring avian conservation. Frequent extreme droughts in the middle and lower Yangtze River region of China have posed severe ecological and [...] Read more.
Comprehending the alterations in wintering grounds of migratory birds amid global change and anthropogenic influences is pivotal for advancing wetland sustainability and ensuring avian conservation. Frequent extreme droughts in the middle and lower Yangtze River region of China have posed severe ecological and socio-economic dilemmas. The integration of internet-derived, crowdsourced geographic data with remote-sensing imagery now facilitates assessments of these avian habitats. Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater body, suffered an unprecedented drought in 2022, offering a unique case study on avian habitat responses to climate extremes. By harnessing social and online platforms’ media reports, we analyzed the types, attributes and proportions of migratory bird habitats. This crowdsourced geographic information, corroborated by Sentinel-2 optical remote-sensing imagery, elucidated the suitability and transformations of these habitats under drought stress. Our findings revealed marked variations in habitat preferences among bird species, largely attributable to divergent feeding ecologies and behavioral patterns. Dominantly, shallow waters emerged as the most favored habitat, succeeded by mudflats and grasslands. Remote-sensing analyses disclosed a stark 60% reduction in optimal habitat area during the drought phase, paralleled by a 1.5-fold increase in unsuitable habitat areas compared to baseline periods. These prime habitats were chiefly localized in Poyang Lake’s western sub-lakes. The extreme drought precipitated a drastic contraction in suitable habitat extent and heightened fragmentation. Our study underscores the value of crowdsourced geographic information in assessing habitat suitability for migratory birds. Retaining sub-lake water surfaces within large river or lake floodplains during extreme droughts emerges as a key strategy to buffer the impacts of hydrological extremes on avian habitats. This research contributes to refining conservation strategies and promoting adaptive management practices of wetlands in the face of climate change. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use/Land Cover Mapping Changes Using Earth Observations Techniques)
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24 pages, 39934 KiB  
Article
Influence of Avocado Plantations as Driver of Land Use and Land Cover Change in Chile’s Aconcagua Basin
by Iongel Duran-Llacer, Andrés A. Salazar, Pedro Mondaca, Lien Rodríguez-López, Rebeca Martínez-Retureta, Francisco Zambrano, Fabian Llanos and Frederic Frappart
Land 2025, 14(4), 750; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14040750 - 1 Apr 2025
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1031
Abstract
Land use and land cover (LULC) change is a dynamic process influenced by various factors, including agricultural expansion. In Chile’s Aconcagua Basin, avocado plantations are potentially driving territorial transformations. However, current land cover data lacks the resolution required to accurately assess this impact. [...] Read more.
Land use and land cover (LULC) change is a dynamic process influenced by various factors, including agricultural expansion. In Chile’s Aconcagua Basin, avocado plantations are potentially driving territorial transformations. However, current land cover data lacks the resolution required to accurately assess this impact. Accordingly, our study used advanced geospatial analysis techniques to address this gap. Through a detailed analysis of the spatial and temporal changes, it was determined that the most significant expansion of avocado plantations occurred between 2003 and 2013, with an increase of 402%. This growth primarily took place at the expense of native vegetation, particularly sclerophyllous shrubland, as well as other agricultural lands, near agricultural and urban lands. By 2023, changes in avocado plantation were significantly slower, with minimal alterations in LULC (5%), suggesting a possible influence of drought on small-scale farmers. However, the small loss of avocado plantation was mainly replaced by fruit farm land. Moreover, our findings suggest that while avocado plantations have become larger, more dominant, and more isolated, native vegetation has become more fragmented and reduced in patch size. Based on these results, sustainable land management practices were proposed. These findings provide a crucial foundation for developing sustainable land management strategies that balance agricultural production with environmental sustainability, landscape transformation and the well-being of local communities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use/Land Cover Mapping Changes Using Earth Observations Techniques)
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