Special issue  

Agricultural and forested areas cover large surfaces over many countries and are a very important resource that needs to be protected and managed correctly for both the environment and the local communities. Food security, population growth, urbanization, and intensive agricultural development are some of the factors that generate increasing demands for water and land resources in the context of global change. Therefore, potential impacts deriving from a changing climate, from more frequent and intense extreme events, and from man-made activities can pose a serious threat to economic infrastructure and development in the coming decades, and also severely undermine food, fodder, water, and energy security for a growing global population.

Significant recent changes in climate and in the hydrological cycle, which is deviating from past trends, will impact on land suitability for agricultural production and on the forest ecosystems. In particular, we can expect an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather and weather-related events such as heat and cold waves, floods, wind and snow storms, droughts, wildfires, tropical storms, and dust storms. Furthermore, man-made activities can exacerbate consequences of an unbalanced environment, such as water quality degradation, groundwater depletion, land subsidence, erosion, and sedimentation. The intensity and frequency of extreme weather and climate events follow trends expected of a warming planet, and more importantly, such events will continue to occur with increased likelihood and severity over large areas of the world. Therefore, sustainable management and exploitation of first-order agricultural resources and forested areas, e.g. available land with favourable climate, soil, and water, will become even more important in the lives and activities of people. This special issue solicits studies allowing quantitative or qualitative assessment of risks based on geospatial technologies such as remote sensing and GIS modelling, including integration of environmental and socio-economical components. Furthermore, the special issue welcomes papers that approach the study of agricultural resources and forest ecosystem management based on technologies and methodologies that have been lately developed.