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Artificial Intelligence and Remote Sensing Applied to Forest Management: Advances in Machine Learning and Deep Learning Applications

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 July 2026 | Viewed by 1509

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
GeoEnvironmental Cartography and Remote Sensing Group (CGAT), Department of Cartographic Engineering, Geodesy and Photogrammetry, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camí de Vera s/n, 46022 València, Spain
Interests: remote sensing; discrete and full-waveform lidar; forest monitoring; machine and deep learning; time series; geoinformatics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Integrated Remote Sensing Studio, Department of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
Interests: remote sensing; lidar; UAV; machine learning; programming; forestry

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The parallel evolution of artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning and deep learning, and remote sensing technologies has transformed forest monitoring, enabling the extraction of detailed information from both passive and active sensors. Machine learning models, ranging from classical algorithms (i.e., Random Forest) to deep architectures (i.e., convolutional neural networks), have been successfully applied in a variety of tasks, including species classification, biomass estimation, and forest cover change detection. Multi-scale remote sensing, ranging from terrestrial surveys, UAV-based campaigns, and airborne flights to satellite missions, has integrated a wide range of passive and active sensors, significantly improving spatial, temporal, radiometric, and spectral resolutions in recent years. The availability of these multi-resolution and multi-temporal datasets is enhancing forest structural characterization and monitoring, supporting analyses across local, regional, and global spatial domains. In parallel, the proliferation of cloud-based platforms, big data analytics, and open data repositories is increasing the scalability of forest monitoring, allowing for analyses over vast spatial extents and extended timeframes. These technologies are accelerating the transition toward smart forestry practices, characterized by real-time monitoring, intelligent decision-making, and predictive modeling for sustainable forest management.

This Special Issue aims to synthesize studies that develop and apply artificial intelligence techniques in forest remote sensing to address challenges such as species classification, forest segmentation, biomass and live fuel moisture content estimation, early plague detection, or the assessment of forest degradation. Articles may address topics including, but not limited to, the following:

  • Forest structure;
  • Biomass;
  • Carbon stock;
  • Live fuel moisture content;
  • Forest segmentation;
  • Species classification;
  • Forest changes;
  • Forest inventory;
  • Forest fuel;
  • Forest degradation;
  • Forest diseases.

Dr. Pablo Crespo-Peremarch
Dr. Juan Pedro Carbonell-Rivera
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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

  • multispectral
  • hyperspectral
  • lidar
  • radar
  • photogrammetry
  • UAV
  • deep learning
  • machine learning
  • neural networks

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 2770 KB  
Article
Integrating Multi-Source Data to Assess Temporal Changes and Drivers of Forest Cover in the Western Margins of the Sichuan Basin
by Fengqi Li and Bin Wang
Remote Sens. 2026, 18(7), 1010; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18071010 - 27 Mar 2026
Abstract
Mountain forests on the western edge of the Sichuan Basin are challenging to monitor at high resolution because rugged topography, cloud cover, and Landsat-7 SLC-off artifacts create data gaps, while the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and subsequent restoration further alter vegetation dynamics. We fused [...] Read more.
Mountain forests on the western edge of the Sichuan Basin are challenging to monitor at high resolution because rugged topography, cloud cover, and Landsat-7 SLC-off artifacts create data gaps, while the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and subsequent restoration further alter vegetation dynamics. We fused Landsat 5/7/8/9 surface reflectance with MODIS MOD13Q1 using an index-then-fusion STARFM framework to reconstruct a continuous 30 m NDVI record for 2000–2024 and quantified forest fraction dynamics using annual forest/non-forest maps, transition analysis, and K-means clustering of pixel-wise NDVI trajectories. To identify dominant controls, we applied a multi-output random forest with spatial block cross-validation and SHAP attribution. The fused NDVI agrees well with MODIS across 100,000 samples (R2 = 0.953; RMSE = 0.032), and the regional mean NDVI increased from 0.711 (2000) to 0.774 (2024), showing a post-2008 decline–stagnation–recovery pattern. Forest fraction rose from 48.2% to 72.9%, with accelerated gains after 2010 (+21.4%), and improving trajectories dominated (70.95%), concentrating near the Longmenshan fault zone. The driver model generalized well (micro-mean R2 = 0.875), and SHAP ranked elevation (32.6%) and initial forest fraction (32.3%) above temperature and precipitation. These results provide high-resolution evidence of mountain forest change and its primary controls to support terrain-informed ecological management. Full article
25 pages, 7384 KB  
Article
Remote Sensing-Assisted Physical Modelling of Complex Spatio-Temporal Nitrate Leaching Patterns from Silvopastoral Systems
by Kiril Manevski, Magdalena Ullfors, Maarit Mäenpää, Uffe Jørgensen, Ji Chen and Anne Grete Kongsted
Remote Sens. 2025, 17(24), 3965; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17243965 - 8 Dec 2025
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Abstract
Affordable optical data from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) coupled with process-based models could constitute an integrative platform to map complex spatio-temporal patterns of nitrate leaching and reduce uncertainties in tightening the nitrogen (N) cycle of silvopastoral systems. This study uses field data from [...] Read more.
Affordable optical data from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) coupled with process-based models could constitute an integrative platform to map complex spatio-temporal patterns of nitrate leaching and reduce uncertainties in tightening the nitrogen (N) cycle of silvopastoral systems. This study uses field data from a commercial farm in Denmark with lactating sows housed in paddocks with pastures flanking a central zone of poplars, either pruned (P) or unpruned (tall, T), each with resources (feed and hut) on the same (S) or opposite side (O) of the tree zone. The poplar leaf area index derived from canopy cover using a computer vision approach on true-colour UAV imagery was fed to a process-based model alongside soil data and geostatistical analyses to derive the soil water balance across the paddocks and explicitly map the variation in soil nitrate leaching. The results showed clear patterns not seen before of nitrate leaching hotspots shifting from high values in the pre-study year without animals to diluted lower values in the main study year involving the pigs. The results also showed a seasonal and spatial variation of 7 to 860 kg N ha−1 year−1, a wide leaching range otherwise difficult to capture, by employing only a process-based model using mean effective parameters. Nitrate leaching was in the order PO > PS > TO > TS. The N cycle was tightened with T regardless of S/O. The approach could be improved with more machine learning-aided process-based modelling to operationally monitor complex silvopastoral systems to alleviate nitrate leaching in outdoor pig systems. Full article
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