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Remote Sensing for Risk Assessment, Monitoring and Recovery of Fires

A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2025) | Viewed by 3604

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
College of Electronic Science and Technology, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China
Interests: forest fires; wildfire assessment; target detection; remote sensing; deep learning

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Guest Editor
Lab of Forest Management and Remote Sensing, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Interests: forest fires; land-use/land-cover mapping; pre-fire planning and post-fire assessment; remote sensing; GIS; forest management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
DHI, Agern Alle 5, 2970 Hørsholm, Denmark
Interests: environmental change monitoring; machine learning/deep learning; geospatial artificial intelligence
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Remote sensing, utilizing sensors on satellites, aircraft or UAVs, is crucial for wildfire risk assessment, monitoring and recovery. It enables rapid active fire detection, timely mapping and tracking of burned areas and environmental impact assessment at various scales. Recent advancements in remote sensing technology have further enhanced its capabilities in the field of fire risk assessment, monitoring and recovery. Multi-source sensors, such as optical, thermal, radar and LiDAR, have made it possible to map forest structure, fuel type and arrangement, fire characteristics, etc. Additionally, artificial intelligence algorithms can learn high-level features from multi-source data and significantly improve the accuracy and efficiency of wildfire detection, mapping and recovery modelling.

We welcome research contributions that explore novel methods in remote sensing for risk assessment, monitoring and recovery of fires. We look forward to receiving journal manuscripts that focus on leveraging remote sensing data and artificial intelligence technologies to help analyze the impact of wildfires and advance the state-of-the-art research in this critical field. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Utilizing remote sensing data for early fire detection and risk assessment;
  • Monitoring fire spread and behavior using satellites, aircraft or UAVs;
  • Assessing post-fire damage and recovery efforts through remote sensing techniques;
  • Integrating remote sensing with other technologies for comprehensive fire management;
  • Developing new algorithms and methods for processing and analyzing remote sensing data related to fires.

Dr. Xikun Hu
Dr. Ioannis Gitas
Dr. Puzhao Zhang
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. 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.

Keywords

  • remote sensing
  • geoscience and earth observation
  • artificial intelligence
  • machine learning
  • forest fires
  • post-fire assessment
  • visualization and mapping

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 10835 KB  
Article
Evaluation of Post-Fire Treatments (Erosion Barriers) on Vegetation Recovery Using RPAS and Sentinel-2 Time-Series Imagery
by Fernando Pérez-Cabello, Carlos Baroja-Saenz, Raquel Montorio and Jorge Angás-Pajas
Remote Sens. 2025, 17(20), 3422; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17203422 - 13 Oct 2025
Viewed by 234
Abstract
Post-fire soil and vegetation changes can intensify erosion and sediment yield by altering the factors controlling the runoff–infiltration balance. Erosion barriers (EBs) are widely used in hydrological and forest restoration to mitigate erosion, reduce sediment transport, and promote vegetation recovery. However, precise spatial [...] Read more.
Post-fire soil and vegetation changes can intensify erosion and sediment yield by altering the factors controlling the runoff–infiltration balance. Erosion barriers (EBs) are widely used in hydrological and forest restoration to mitigate erosion, reduce sediment transport, and promote vegetation recovery. However, precise spatial assessments of their effectiveness remain scarce, requiring validation through operational methodologies. This study evaluates the impact of EB on post-fire vegetation recovery at two temporal and spatial scales: (1) Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) imagery, acquired at high spatial resolution but limited to a single acquisition date coinciding with the field flight. These data were captured using a MicaSense RedEdge-MX multispectral camera and an RGB optical sensor (SODA), from which NDVI and vegetation height were derived through aerial photogrammetry and digital surface models (DSMs). (2) Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, offering coarser spatial resolution but enabling multi-temporal analysis, through NDVI time series spanning four consecutive years. The study was conducted in the area of the Luna Fire (northern Spain), which burned in July 2015. A paired sampling design compared upstream and downstream areas of burned wood stacks and control sites using NDVI values and vegetation height. Results showed slightly higher NDVI values (0.45) upstream of the EB (p < 0.05), while vegetation height was, on average, ~8 cm lower than in control sites (p > 0.05). Sentinel-2 analysis revealed significant differences in NDVI distributions between treatments (p < 0.05), although mean values were similar (~0.32), both showing positive trends over four years. This study offers indirect insight into the functioning and effectiveness of EB in post-fire recovery. The findings highlight the need for continued monitoring of treated areas to better understand environmental responses over time and to inform more effective land management strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Risk Assessment, Monitoring and Recovery of Fires)
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23 pages, 6963 KB  
Article
Remote-Sensing-Based Prioritization of Post-Fire Restoration Actions in Mediterranean Ecosystems: A Case Study in Cyprus
by Maria Prodromou, Ioannis Gitas, Christodoulos Mettas, Marios Tzouvaras, Kyriacos Themistocleous, Andreas Konstantinidis, Andreas Pamboris and Diofantos Hadjimitsis
Remote Sens. 2025, 17(7), 1269; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17071269 - 2 Apr 2025
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2639
Abstract
Global forest degradation and deforestation present urgent environmental challenges demanding efficient strategies for ecological restoration to maximize the impacts and minimize the costs. This study aims to develop a spatial decision support tool to prioritize post-fire restoration actions in Mediterranean ecosystems, with a [...] Read more.
Global forest degradation and deforestation present urgent environmental challenges demanding efficient strategies for ecological restoration to maximize the impacts and minimize the costs. This study aims to develop a spatial decision support tool to prioritize post-fire restoration actions in Mediterranean ecosystems, with a focus on Cyprus. At the core of this study is the GRESTO Index (GreenHIT-RESTORATION Index), a novel geospatial tool designed to guide reforestation efforts in fire-affected areas. GRESTO integrates geospatial data and ecological criteria through a multi-criteria decision-making approach based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The model incorporates nine key indicators, including fire severity, tree density, land cover, fire history, slope, elevation, aspect, precipitation, and temperature, and classifies restoration priority zones into low, medium, and high categories. When applied to the Solea fire event in Cyprus, the model identified 24% of the area as high priority, 66% as medium and 10% as low. The validation against previous restoration actions implemented in the study area demonstrated reliable agreement, with an overall accuracy of 80.9%, a recall of 0.70 for high priority areas, and an AUC of 0.79, indicating very good separability. Moreover, sensitivity analysis further confirmed the robustness of the model under varying parameter weights. These findings highlight the GRESTO model’s potential to support data-driven, cost-effective restoration planning aligned with national and international environmental goals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Risk Assessment, Monitoring and Recovery of Fires)
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