Remote Sensing Applications in Monitoring of Protected Areas

Dear Colleagues,

Remote sensing has been successfully applied in the inventory and monitoring of protected areas around the world. Protected areas include national parks, national forests, all level of natural preserves and designated areas for the conservation of biological diversity and cultural and natural significance. Protected areas also include frontier and wilderness areas that are among the treasures of the natural world. Some protected areas are the only places that contain undisturbed landscapes and ecosystems on the planet. Along coasts and across oceans, protected areas include national seashores and marine protected areas that encompass intertidal or subtidal terrain, together with their overlying water and associated flora, fauna, historical and cultural features. With intensified impacts of climate and environmental change, protected areas are becoming more important in terms of serving as indicators of ecosystem status and function. A study reported recently that “Earth’s remaining wilderness areas are becoming increasingly important buffers against changing conditions in the Anthropocene. Yet they aren’t an explicit target in international policy frameworks (Watson et al., Nature, Vol. 563, 2018).” Remote sensing plays an irreplaceable role on the frontline of these challenges.

With the rapid development of remote sensing science and technologies, this Special Issue aims to publish original manuscripts on the latest innovative research and advancement in the remote sensing of protected areas. Comprehensive reviews of this research field are also welcome. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• State-of-the-art remote sensing technologies to capture the dynamics of ecosystem variations.
• Evaluations of newly available sensors, data, and new development of integrated approaches.
• Methods for processing advanced remote sensing and time series data.
• Integration of multisource and open source data, such as from in situ measurements, UAV observations, Google Earth Engine, habitat assessments, social economic development, policy factors, and citizen science in inventory and monitoring practices.
• Applications of remote sensing in topics, such as biospheric, atmospheric, hydrospheric and societal dimensions of protected lands, habitat mapping and biodiversity conservation, impacts of climate change, detection of effects from extreme natural and anthoropogenic disturbances, as well as uncertainty, mitigation, resilience and sustainability of protected areas under changing environments.

Contributors are required to check the website below and follow the specific instructions for authors. http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/instructions

Dr. Yeqiao Wang
Dr. Zhong Lu
Dr. Yongwei Sheng
Dr. Yuyu Zhou
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.