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Application of Remote Sensing in Landscapes and Environmental Monitoring

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2023) | Viewed by 6428

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Basanta Paudel

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Guest Editor

Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Interests: land use; land cover; land resources; ecosystem services; remote sensing; geography; GIS; UAV; climate change
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Shicheng Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of public administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Interests: land use; land cover; remote sensing; GIS; landscapes and environmental monitoring
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Pranesh Kumar Paul

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Guest Editor

School of Engineering, University of Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Interests: surface water hydrology; remote sensing & eco-hydrology; hydrological modelling & model development; water resources management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The application of remote sensing in natural resource management, landscapes and environmental monitoring is very crucial. The majority of such research has applied remote sensing techniques and datasets for their scientific finding, which helped to improve governmental policies in the favor of science and society.

Across the globe, there are rich geographical, environmental and biodiversity variances with many prospects and challenges. It is notable that even with small changes in some regions of the earth, the consequences are not only limited to particular areas but also affected by the surrounding areas. Global change has highly impacted nature and society, and the impacts of such changes have widely drawn the attention of many scientists to carry out research work to understand the processes of change, its implications and mitigation measures and adaptation to the changes.

Thus, this Special Issue aims to collect scientific research and review papers on the application of remote sensing in landscapes and environmental monitoring in different regions and topography of the globe. We invite authors to submit both scientific research and review papers on this Special Issue. Potential topics with the application of remote sensing include but are not limited to the following:

Land use and land cover change
Ecosystem services
Farmland abondonment and their driving factors
Remote sensing for drought monitoring
Sustainable land resource management
Application of remote sensing in environmental monitoring
Application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)
Monitoring of urbanization
Monitoring of urban heat island
Remote sensing for snow/glacier monitoring
Remote sensing for disaster monitoring
Remote sensing for hydrological modelling

Dr. Basanta Paudel
Dr. Shicheng Li
Dr. Pranesh Kumar Paul
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. 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

Land use and land cover change
Ecosystem services
Farmland abandonment
Drought
Sustainable land resource management
Environmental monitoring
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)
Urbanization
Snow/glacier cover.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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21 pages, 27369 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Trail Repair Works Based on Three-Dimensional Monitoring around Mount Kurodake, Daisetsuzan National Park, Japan

by Yusuke Kobayashi and Teiji Watanabe

Sustainability 2023, 15(17), 12794; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151712794 - 24 Aug 2023

Viewed by 909

Abstract

Many mountainous, protected areas, such as national parks worldwide, face trail erosion; stakeholders have made significant efforts to manage eroded trails. However, their effectiveness has not been evaluated. This study aimed to (1) create digital elevation models of an eroded trail using structure-from-motion and multi-view-stereo photogrammetry in Daisetsuzan National Park, northern Japan; (2) conduct a six-year monitoring of the trails repaired by volunteers to reveal trail surface changes; and (3) discuss the effectiveness of the repair works. Palm-fiber bags were used on the trail section to stop the movement of the eroded soil. The results of the three-dimensional analysis identified a certain effectiveness of the repair work during 2017–2022. However, the effectiveness lasted for only approximately three years and was not permanent. Therefore, regular maintenance is necessary to ensure trail sustainability. In addition, the soil erosion rate calculated using the maximum erosion depth has increased from 0.52 mm y⁻¹ (1923–1990) to 44.4 mm y⁻¹ (2013–2022), suggesting the need for frequent observations. Trail maintenance through a combination of monitoring and repair work is vital, and the role of hikers/trekkers is becoming increasingly important. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Remote Sensing in Landscapes and Environmental Monitoring)

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19 pages, 14913 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Integrating Unsupervised Machine Intelligence and Anomaly Detection for Spatio-Temporal Dynamic Mapping Using Remote Sensing Image Series

by Vinícius L. S. Gino, Rogério G. Negri, Felipe N. Souza, Erivaldo A. Silva, Adriano Bressane, Tatiana S. G. Mendes and Wallace Casaca

Sustainability 2023, 15(6), 4725; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15064725 - 07 Mar 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1549

Abstract

The synergistic use of remote sensing and unsupervised machine learning has emerged as a potential tool for addressing a variety of environmental monitoring applications, such as detecting disaster-affected areas and deforestation. This paper proposes a new machine-intelligent approach to detecting and characterizing spatio-temporal changes on the Earth’s surface by using remote sensing data and unsupervised learning. Our framework was designed to be fully automatic by integrating unsupervised anomaly detection models, remote sensing image series, and open data extracted from the Google Earth Engine platform. The methodology was evaluated by taking both simulated and real-world environmental data acquired from several imaging sensors, including Landsat-8 OLI, Sentinel-2 MSI, and Terra MODIS. The experimental results were measured with the kappa and F1-score metrics, and they indicated an assertiveness level of 0.85 for the change detection task, demonstrating the accuracy and robustness of the proposed approach when addressing distinct environmental monitoring applications, including the detection of disaster-affected areas and deforestation mapping. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Remote Sensing in Landscapes and Environmental Monitoring)

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Review

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19 pages, 3562 KiB

Open AccessReview

Appraisal of Empirical Studies on Land-Use and Land-Cover Changes and Their Impact on Ecosystem Services in Nepal Himalaya

by Mohan Kumar Rai, Basanta Paudel, Yili Zhang, Pashupati Nepal, Narendra Raj Khanal, Linshan Liu and Raju Rai

Sustainability 2023, 15(9), 7134; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097134 - 24 Apr 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2556

Abstract

The study of land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) and their impact on ecosystem services (ESs) is vital for Nepal, where the majority of people are dependent on agriculture and services related to the ecosystem. In this context, this paper aims to appraise the empirical studies on land-use and land-cover changes and their impact on ecosystem services in Nepal Himalaya. The study acquired studies from Web of Science and Google Scholar for systematic review. Altogether, 90 scientific studies, including 64 on land use and land cover and 26 on ecosystem services, published between 1986 and 2020 focusing Nepal, were assessed. The results show that there were continual changes in land-cover and land-use types in Nepal, as well as in the pace of development due to natural, anthropogenic, and policy factors. According to the national land-cover scenario, forests tended to increase, whereas agricultural land gradually decreased in recent years, with some of the available agricultural land even being abandoned. The scenario of the agricultural land in the Karnali river basin was different from those of the land in the Koshi and Gandaki basins. In the mid-twentieth century, the expansion of agricultural land and massive deforestation were observed, mainly in the Tarai region. Development works, urbanization, and the rural–urban migration led to the gradual decrease in and abandonment of the available agricultural land in recent decades. Further, this overall scenario has determined in provision of ESs. Forests have the highest value of ES, and community forests have played a vital role in their restoration. The concept of payment for ESs has greatly supported socio-economic development and ecosystem conservation. However, the formulation and implementation of effective landscape planning with suitable policies and enforcement mechanisms is essential to balance the negative impact of LULC on the sustained management of ecosystems and their associated services. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Remote Sensing in Landscapes and Environmental Monitoring)

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