Mountain regions are storehouses of global biodiversity but also with polar areas demonstrate the ability of life to succeed in extreme conditions. Their diversity leads to exceptional flora and fauna and the unique cultural variety of people, making mountains and polar regions particularly important spots for conservation efforts which require among others detail and continuous monitoring and assessment. Moreover, due to its exceptional nature, climate, and sensitivity to climate and land use changes, the high-altitude and high-latitude regions are a warning system as far as climate, and land use changes are concerned.
Remote sensing provides a unique perspective on what is happening on the Earth, therefore, plays an important role in biodiversity and conservation monitoring and assessment.
Earth observation needs for ecosystems in the mountain and polar regions constantly changing but still include accurate and continuous biodiversity monitoring and assessment using both in situ and remote sensing observations to observe and evaluate ecological change and better understand coupled natural and human systems.
This Special Issue is aiming to cover the most recent advances in techniques and algorithms to process remotely sensed information for ecology and conservation in the high-altitude and high-latitude regions. Welcomed contributions include:
- developments in Earth observation Data Cubes use,
- improvements in data fusion techniques,
- novel use of high to
very-high resolution Earth observation data, - advances in cloud-based computing.
More details at the Special Issue website.