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Big Earth Observation Data Analysis for Environment Monitoring

A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 July 2022) | Viewed by 7616

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. Institute for Ecological Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria
2. Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria
Interests: time series analysis; pattern recognition; global resource extraction; environmental monitoring

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Guest Editor
Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
Interests: Earth observation data cubes; geostatistics; scalable computing; environmental monitoring

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Satellite Earth observation (EO) is the most comprehensive and timely source of data to address global environmental challenges. Despite the increasing availability of free and open EO data, environmental information on the continental or global scale has not yet been produced at the same speed. Several computational challenges related to big EO data handling and processing have been tackled recently. For example, today’s cloud processing infrastructures allow scaling data analysis more efficiently, and EO data cube technologies provide support for spatiotemporal data analysis, which was highly challenging to perform just a few years ago.

Big EO data analytics provide a unique opportunity to generate new information about and insights into the global environment. However, deriving environmental information with appropriate semantics from big EO data is still a challenge. This Special Issue aims at featuring innovative research that advances big EO data analysis for environmental monitoring. Applications may be related to the whole human Earth system, for example, biodiversity, forestry, agriculture, land-use changes, burning dynamics, and soil degradation. We invite papers including, but not limited to, the following research lines:

  • Scalable methods for environmental monitoring;
  • New insights about global human Earth system dynamics;
  • Tools and systems that facilitate large-scale environmental analysis;
  • Statistical/machine learning approaches to modeling global environmental phenomena;
  • Large-scale environmental change modeling;
  • Socioeconomic drivers of global environmental changes.

Dr. Victor Maus
Dr. Marius Appel
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. 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.

Keywords

  • Environmental impacts
  • Satellite image time series
  • Data cube
  • Statistical learning
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Data mining
  • Earth system dynamics
  • Environmental monitoring

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 3557 KiB  
Article
Integrating Remote Sensing and Spatiotemporal Analysis to Characterize Artificial Vegetation Restoration Suitability in Desert Areas: A Case Study of Mu Us Sandy Land
by Zhanzhuo Chen, Min Huang, Changjiang Xiao, Shuhua Qi, Wenying Du, Daoye Zhu and Orhan Altan
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(19), 4736; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs14194736 - 22 Sep 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1759
Abstract
One of the major barriers to hindering the sustainable development of the terrestrial environment is the desertification process, and revegetation is one of the most significant duties in anti-desertification. Desertification deteriorates land ecosystems through species decline, and remote sensing is becoming the most [...] Read more.
One of the major barriers to hindering the sustainable development of the terrestrial environment is the desertification process, and revegetation is one of the most significant duties in anti-desertification. Desertification deteriorates land ecosystems through species decline, and remote sensing is becoming the most effective way to monitor desertification. Mu Us Sandy Land is the fifth largest desert and the representative area under manmade vegetation restorations in China. Therefore, it is essential to understand the spatiotemporal characteristics of artificial desert transformation for seeking the optimal revegetation location for future restoration planning. However, there are no previous studies focusing on exploring regular patterns between the spatial distribution of vegetation restoration and human-related geographical features. In this study, we use Landsat satellite data from 1986 to 2020 to achieve annual monitoring of vegetation change by a threshold segmentation method, and then use spatiotemporal analysis with Open Street Map (OSM) data to explore the spatiotemporal distribution pattern between vegetation occurrence and human-related features. We construct an artificial vegetation restoration suitability index (AVRSI) by considering human-related features and topographical factors, and we assess artificial suitability for vegetation restoration by mapping methods based on that index and the vegetation distribution pattern. The AVRSI can be commonly used for evaluating restoration suitability in Sandy areas and it is tested acceptable in Mu Us Sandy Land. Our results show during this period, the segmentation threshold and vegetation area of Mu Us Sandy Land increased at rates of 0.005/year and 264.11 km2/year, respectively. Typically, we found the artificial restoration vegetation suitability in Mu Us area spatially declines from southeast to northwest, but eventually increases in the most northwest region. This study reveals the revegetation process in Mu Us Sandy Land by figuring out its spatiotemporal vegetation change with human-related features and maps the artificial revegetation suitability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Big Earth Observation Data Analysis for Environment Monitoring)
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23 pages, 5965 KiB  
Article
Time Series Analysis of Landsat Data for Investigating the Relationship between Land Surface Temperature and Forest Changes in Paphos Forest, Cyprus
by Vassilis Andronis, Vassilia Karathanassi, Victoria Tsalapati, Polychronis Kolokoussis, Milto Miltiadou and Chistos Danezis
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(4), 1010; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs14041010 - 18 Feb 2022
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4756
Abstract
This study aims to investigate how alternations of the land surface temperature (LST) affects the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in Paphos forest, Cyprus, using Landsat-5 and Landsat-8 imagery for the time periods 1993–2000 and 2013–2018, respectively. A total of 262 Landsat images [...] Read more.
This study aims to investigate how alternations of the land surface temperature (LST) affects the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in Paphos forest, Cyprus, using Landsat-5 and Landsat-8 imagery for the time periods 1993–2000 and 2013–2018, respectively. A total of 262 Landsat images were processed to compute the mean monthly NDVI and LST values and create a time series. Using the Cook’s distance, the effect of missing values in the analysis of the time series were examined. Results from the cross-correlation and cross-variograms, decomposition model, and the BFAST algorithm were compared to produce reliable conclusions on forest changes and satellite, meteorological, and environmental data were combined to interpret the changes that occurred inside the forest. The decomposition analysis showed a decrease of 2.7% in the LST for the period 1993–2000 and an increase of 4.6% in the LST during the period 2013–2018. The NDVI trend is negatively correlated to the LST trend for both time periods. An increase in the LST trend was identified in November 1998 as well as in the NDVI trend in October 1994 and May 2014 that was caused by favorable climatic conditions. An increase in the NDVI trend from May 2014 to December 2015 may be related to reduced pityocampa attacks. An abrupt decrease was detected in December 2015 that was probably caused by the locust invasion that occurred in the island earlier that year. A positive correlation appears for LST and NDVI variables for time lags 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 months. Overall, it was shown that LST and NDVI analysis is very promising for identifying potential forest decline. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Big Earth Observation Data Analysis for Environment Monitoring)
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