Applications of Remote Sensing in the Monitoring of the Mountain Cryosphere

Dear Colleagues,

In mountain environments, the cryosphere (comprising snow, river and lake ice, glaciers, and frozen ground) plays a central role in the climate system, affecting the surface energy budget, the water cycle, and the safety of the populations living there.

The implications of a reduction in/alteration of these elements are profound. Snow serves as a crucial water storage reservoir, releasing water slowly during the spring and summer months when it is most needed for various ecological processes and human activities, such as agriculture, hydropower generation, and tourism. Ice acts as a protective cover over the Earth and our oceans, reflecting incoming solar radiation back into space and, in turn, keeping the planet cooler. Permafrost plays an essential role in the high mountain ecosystem by supporting the structural stability of the rocks found there, making the ground watertight and maintaining the network of wetlands and lakes that provide habitats for animals and plants, not to mention its important function as a carbon sink.

Understanding the dynamics of the different cryosphere components accurately is of the utmost importance for effective water resource and risk management in mountain areas and the development of adaptation strategies which can mitigate the impacts of climate change. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore innovative approaches that can provide reliable and timely information about the characteristics of the cryosphere across the world.

This Special Issue calls for papers dealing with remote sensing applications focused on monitoring the cryosphere in mountain environments.

This Special Issue invites both research papers and review articles on recent advances in microwave, hyperspectral, and optical remote sensing with either ground-based, airborne, UAVs, or satellite systems, covering topics spanning from the design of new instrumentation to the development of algorithms which push the boundaries of what is considered the state of the art.

Suggested themes and article types for submissions.

Possible topics include:

• Microwave remote sensing of snow/glaciers
• Ground-based/airborne/satellite systems for cryosphere monitoring
• GNSS-based systems
• Radiometric systems
• Cryosphere monitoring with UAVs
• Modelling of cryosphere processes
• Hyperspectral remote sensing of snow (e.g. for quantifying pollution)

Dr. Pedro Fidel Espín-López
Dr. Massimiliano Barbolini
Dr. Andreas J. Dietz
Guest Editors

Dr. Martina Lodigiani
Guest Editor Assistant
Department of Electronic, Computer and Electical Engineering, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy
Email: [email protected]
Webpage: https://microwave.unipv.it/lodigiani-staff/
Interests: snow monitoring; glacier monitoring; radar; proximal sensing; electromagnetic modeling

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. 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.

• snow cover
• glaciers
• remote sensing
• permafrost
• snow avalanches
• climate change
• water management
• hyperspectral
• black carbon