Remote Sensing. Special Issue "Operationalization of Remote Sensing Solutions for Sustainable Forest Management"

A pre-requisite for sustainable management of natural resources is the availability of timely, cost-effective and comprehensive information of the condition and development trends of the specific resource. Remote sensing has always been an essential source of such information. Specifically, forestry has long benefited from these techniques: the literature on analytic algorithms for forest areas based on remotely sensing data is abundant. Nonetheless, the operational applicability of research results needs to be improved. Moreover, remote sensing researchers often seek purely academic objectives, lacking the support and quality guidance from practical forest management objectives. Thus, science-driven solutions for knowledge transfer between researchers and forest stakeholders/policy makers/end users are becoming increasingly important. With this Special Issue, we aim at compiling research papers dealing both with remote sensing methodologies and the implementation of research results to facilitate sustainable forest management. The focus is placed on remotely sensed data, the development of algorithms for forest site characterization, wood characterization, biomass and CO2 stocking, mapping forest conditions, ecosystem vulnerabilities, socioeconomic functions and conditions, as well as on operationalization of remote sensing for natural resource management through the integration of scientific research and its practical utilisation. Overall, we call out for contributions combining remote sensing and any of the targets of the 2030 strategic research and innovation agenda for the forest based sector. Review contributions are also suitable for the Special Issue. This special issue is linked with H2020 project MySustainableForest, however, contributions from other researchers are very welcomeMiškų ir ekologijos fakultetasVytauto Didžiojo universiteta