This special issue of the European Journal of Remote Sensing consists of selected papers originally presented at the 38th EARSeL Symposium and the 3rd Joint EARSeL LULC & NASA LCLUC Workshop, that took place at Chania, Greece on 9–12 July 2018.
The Symposium covered a range of topics of Earth Observation applications, including 3D Remote Sensing, Climate Change, Forestry and Forest Fires, Geological and Hydrological applications, use of RADAR and LiDAR data, Thermal remote sensing and applications on Cultural Heritage and Archaeology, amongst others. The topic of the Symposium was the manner in which remote sensing data and the methods of data collection and processing can assist in research focusing on sustainability, in light of the observed climate change phenomena and increased resource demands and exploitation.
The joint Workshop focused on the use of Earth Observation data for the monitoring of Land Cover and Land Use Change, with dedicated sessions on synergies of remote sensing technologies, the role of earth observations within the Water – Energy – Food nexus, support of social and behavioural aspects of land use, and the advances and outlook in the processing and analysis of remotely sensed data. The Workshop attempted to address the implications of land-use change on the Water – Energy – Food nexus and how this impacts the achievement of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
A total of more than 200 participants attended the two events, delivering 190 oral and poster presentations, accompanied with extended abstracts. This issue contains seven additional full papers related to the contributions to the events. They address climate change and natural hazards [Abdel-Hamid et al., Citation2020; Nikolakopoulos, Citation2020], use of thermal data [Schultz et al., Citation2019], photogrammetry [Nikolakopoulos, Citation2020], humanitarian assistance [Lang et al., Citation2019], hydrology [Manakos et al., Citation2019], and image processing techniques [Ablin et al., Citation2019]. All papers bring forward improved methods and new knowledge on employing Earth Observation data for the promotion of various aspects of sustainability.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the authors for their contributions and patience during the review process, as well as the reviewers for dedicating their personal time to review the submission and their assistance in improving the content of the manuscripts.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
References
- Abdel-Hamid, A., Dubovyk, O., Graw, V., & Greve, K. (2020). Assessing the impact of drought stress on grasslands using multi-temporal SAR data of Sentinel-1: A case study in Eastern Cape, South Africa. European Journal of Remote Sensing, 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/22797254.2020.1762514
- Ablin, R., Sulochana, C. H., & Prabin, G. (2019). An investigation in satellite images based on image enhancement techniques. European Journal of Remote Sensing, 86–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/22797254.2019.1673216
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- Schultz, J. A., Hartmann, M., Heinemann, S., Janke, J., Jürgens, C., Dieter Oertel, D., Rücker, G., Thonfeld, F., & Rienow, A. (2019). DIEGO: A multispectral thermal mission for Earth observation on the international space station. European Journal of Remote Sensing, 28–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/22797254.2019.1698318