Digital Twins of the Earth: Contribution to a More Sustainable Society

Dear Colleagues,

We are experiencing the fifth technological transformation, moving from digital to smart society. This is due to a cybernetic process that began with the data economy (Big Data), which then led to a new spring of (data-driven) Artificial Intelligence and is culminating in the transition from the physical to the virtual world (cyber-physical world). In this innovative context, the interaction pattern known as Digital Twin plays an important role in making our society and its development more sustainable. Indeed, the Digital Twins tool makes it possible to monitor, simulate, predict, optimize, and govern complex processes and systems that today consume resources and significantly impact the environment and society more generally. For this reason, there is a need to increasingly develop knowledge, methods, and techniques related to the Digital Twin pattern in all the sectors of society.

This Special Issue aims to collect significant and valuable examples of knowledge, methodologies, technologies, and applications related to Digital Twin in the fields of Earth Observation and Geospatial science. This will contribute to the Journal's purpose of understanding the role and importance of Remote Sensing for society and human knowledge.

This Special Issue encourages the submission of original manuscripts that have the themes of the Digital Twin pattern, remote sensing, and sustainable development. A few topics, which are not exhaustive, are given as examples:

• Digital Twin of the Earth system or sub-systems;
• Geospatial Digital Twin for monitoring/managing complex systems;
• The role of Earth Observation in the Cyber-physical domain;
• The use of natural and social observation systems for the process of societal demarcation;
• The use of Digital Twins for simulation and/or prediction of the behaviour of natural or social systems.

Prof. Dr. Stefano Nativi
Guest Editor

Prof. Paolo Mazzetti
Co-Guest Editor

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. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2700 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.

• digital twin
• earth observation
• sustainability
• cyber-physical world (virtual worlds)
• Web 4.0 (intelligent web)
• AI