Urban Environmental, Spatial and Land Use Assessment by Remote Sensing and GIS
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Resources and Sustainable Utilization".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 27 February 2027 | Viewed by 129
Special Issue Editor
Interests: remote sensing; machine learning; sustainable development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Rapid urbanization poses unprecedented challenges to environmental sustainability, resource management, and ecological balance worldwide. As cities expand and transform, understanding the complex dynamics between urban development and environmental systems has become essential for achieving sustainable development goals. In this context, the integration of remote sensing technologies and Geographic Information Systems (GISs) offers powerful capabilities for monitoring, analyzing, and assessing urban environmental spaces and land use patterns with unprecedented spatial and temporal precision.
Recent advances in Earth observation technologies—including high-resolution optical imagery, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), light detection and ranging (LiDAR), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)—have significantly enhanced our capacity to capture detailed urban surface characteristics. Coupled with sophisticated GIS analytical frameworks, these tools enable comprehensive assessments of land use and land cover change (LUCC), urban sprawl dynamics, green infrastructure distribution, thermal environment patterns, and ecosystem service valuation. Furthermore, the emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms has revolutionized the extraction of actionable information from massive geospatial datasets, facilitating accurate land use classification, change detection, and predictive modeling.
This Special Issue, titled "Urban Environmental, Spatial and Land Use Assessment by Remote Sensing and GIS", aims to gather cutting-edge research that advances the theory and practice of urban environmental monitoring and sustainable land use planning. We invite contributions that explore innovative methodologies, multi-source data fusion techniques, and interdisciplinary applications spanning urban ecological assessment, carbon sequestration mapping, urban heat island mitigation, sustainable transportation planning, and the evaluation of urban resilience to climate change. Studies that bridge remote sensing analysis with socio-economic datasets to support evidence-based urban policy and planning are particularly welcome.
Despite significant technological progress, challenges persist in handling the volume and complexity of urban big data, ensuring interoperability among diverse data sources, and translating spatial assessments into effective management strategies. This collection seeks to address these challenges by showcasing novel analytical workflows, accuracy improvement strategies, and practical solutions for sustainable urban governance.
We invite original research articles and comprehensive reviews that demonstrate the critical role of remote sensing and GIS in advancing our understanding of urban environmental systems and promoting sustainable land use practices. Through this compilation, we aim to strengthen the scientific foundation for sustainable urban development and inspire innovative geospatial solutions for future cities.
Dr. Xianju Li
Guest Editor
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. Sustainability 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 2400 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
- geographic information system (GIS)
- urban land use assessment
- spatial analysis
- sustainable urban development
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