Remote Sensing for Aquatic Environments: Applications, Innovations, and Future Perspectives
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "New Sensors, New Technologies and Machine Learning in Water Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2026 | Viewed by 202
Special Issue Editor
Interests: remote sensing of environment; land use/land cover change; urbanization; machine learning and data mining; InSAR technology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue highlights the vital applications and key challenges of remote sensing in aquatic environmental monitoring. It details how satellite, aerial, and drone technologies are used to map essential indicators like chlorophyll-a, suspended sediments, harmful algal blooms, and pollutants across oceans, coasts, and lakes. This capability provides invaluable, large-scale data for ecosystem assessment and management.
However, significant challenges persist. These include technical difficulties in accurately correcting atmospheric interference and retrieving data from optically complex waters. There is also a critical need to better integrate remote sensing data with in situ measurements and hydrodynamic models to improve accuracy. A major hurdle is transitioning research algorithms into reliable, operational tools for consistent, long-term monitoring used by decision-makers. The issue concludes that remote sensing is an indispensable but evolving tool, requiring continued innovation to fully realize its potential for safeguarding aquatic environments.
The topics covered in this Special Issue include the following:
- Satellite-based detection of water quality parameters (e.g., turbidity, CDOM, nutrients).
- Monitoring harmful algal blooms (HABs) and eutrophication dynamics.
- Tracking thermal pollution and sea surface temperature anomalies.
- Mapping coastal habitat changes (e.g., mangroves, seagrasses, coral reefs).
- Observing oil spills, marine debris, and other pollution events.
- Integration of multi-sensor and multi-platform data (satellite, UAV, in-situ).
- Overcoming limitations in spatial, temporal, and spectral resolution.
- Validation and calibration using in-situ measurements.
- Bridging the scale gap between satellite data and ecological processes.
- Machine learning and AI for data analysis and parameter retrieval.
Dr. Hui Li
Guest Editor
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. Water 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 2600 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
- aquatic environments
- water quality monitoring
- chlorophyll-a
- harmful algal blooms
- optical complexity
- algorithm development
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.
