Remote Sensing and Nature-Based Solutions to Minimize Soil Erosion in Protected Areas and Agricultural Land

Dear Colleagues,

The International Year of Soils was declared by the FAO in 2015 to highlight the importance of maintaining healthy soils for society. Soil erosion is a topic that concerns SDGs, mainly objective 15, to protect, restore, and promote the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss. One of the main problems with soils is their erosion, which is caused by unavoidable natural phenomena such as climate change, which exacerbate processes such as forest fires and lead to erosion in fire-affected habitats. Human causes, such as ineffective conservationist practices in agricultural activity, lead to an increase in soil degradation over time. Climate models reasonably accurately identify regions of the planet where the process of desertification may have an impact, changing ecosystems and the economies of societies that need to adapt. To minimize the effects of these processes, one possibility is the use of nature-based solutions and the adequate management of territory. A management tool for ensuring ecosystem balance and the provision of ecosystem services, such as sediment retention, which are essential areas for soil conservation, is the delineation of protected areas. Contrarily, conservation measures are necessary in agricultural areas to lessen the effects of intensive land use. To understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of soil erosion, remote sensing methodologies and techniques are currently used to assess the conditions of agricultural areas and protected areas. The rapid development of machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques allows for the implementation of methods that provide a high capacity of territory analysis for decision making; in the context of this Special Issue of Land, submissions revolving around these methods are strongly encouraged.

This Special Issue's objective is to gather papers (original research articles and review papers) which provide insights into soil conservation in protected areas and agricultural lands using cutting-edge remote sensing methodologies and field techniques for monitoring soil erosion brought on by inadequate land management or agricultural practices.

This Special Issue welcomes manuscripts which focus on the following themes:

• Soil erosion;
• Soil erosion modeling;
• Soil conservation;
• Protected areas and agriculture lands;
• Remote sensing.

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

Dr. Saulo Folharini
Dr. António Vieira
Dr. António Bento-Gonçalves
Dr. Antonio Peñalver-Alcalá
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.

• soil degradation
• soil erosion
• desertification
• geomorphology
• remote sensing
• land use
• land cover
• land degradation
• ecosystem services
• protected areas
• agriculture lands