Advances in Multi-Scale Geographic Environmental Monitoring: Theory, Methodology and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The geographic environment is a complex concept encompassing various natural elements of the Earth's surface and human activities. Natural conditions such as climate, land, and rivers are fundamental to human beings' emergence, survival, and development. Conversely, human activities also significantly impact the geographic environment. The interaction and mutual influence between natural conditions and human activities constitute the geographic environment of the Earth. However, previous research on geographic environment monitoring has often focused on specific objects and spatial and/or temporal scales, making it difficult to comprehensively understand the distinctive characteristics, shifts, and interconnections within the geographic environment. Currently, field surveys, monitoring stations, sensor networks, multisource remote sensing (satellite, airborne, and ground-based), geospatial big data, and especially the development of remote sensing technology and geographic environment monitoring networks enable the observation of multidimensional and multiscale geographic environmental conditions over extended periods, high frequencies, and multiple scales. Through multiscale monitoring, geographic environmental data can be obtained from global to local and macro- to microscales. Integrated data analysis from different scales can lead to a better understanding of the geographic environment's overall characteristics and changing patterns. Diversifying geographic environment monitoring methods has expanded the depth, breadth, and accuracy of geographic process simulation and analysis. Geographic environmental monitoring has a wide range of objects and scientific application scenarios, such as ecosystem services, natural resource distribution, water resource management, climate change research, disaster monitoring, and environmental protection. In summary, research on multiscale geographic environmental elements is of great significance for deepening the understanding of the complexity of the Earth system, predicting environmental changes, supporting sustainable development, and promoting interdisciplinary communication and collaboration. Therefore, this topic aims to collect innovative original manuscripts on the theoretical, methodological, and applied aspects of multiscale geographic environmental monitoring. In addition, review articles and meta-analysis papers on these topics are also welcome.

• Scale effects of spatial heterogeneity of geographic environmental elements;
• Spatiotemporal analysis of geographic environmental elements;
• Theories, technologies, and methods of geographic environmental monitoring;
• Assessment of ecosystem services;
• Land surface process simulation;
• Scale dependence and threshold effects in geographic environmental research;
• Theories, systems, and methods of geographic environmental evaluation;
• Fusion and scale conversion of multisource heterogeneous data products;
• Uncertainty in the monitoring of geographic environmental elements.

Dr. Jingzhe Wang
Dr. Yangyi Wu
Dr. Yinghui Zhang
Dr. Ivan Lizaga
Dr. Zipeng Zhang
Topic Editors