Drylands, which include arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid regions, cover 41% of the Earth’s land surface. However, their sustainability is increasingly at risk due to climate change, over-exploitation, deforestation, soil erosion, and the resulting land degradation, or more specifically, desertification. To achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal of Land Degradation Neutrality by 2030, it is crucial to assess the condition of drylands as early and accurately as possible. Remote sensing, through satellite imagery, aerial photography, or data from UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), has demonstrated its value as a powerful tool for capturing dryland characteristics across local, regional, and continental scales.
Over recent decades, significant progress has been made in utilizing remote sensing to study dryland properties, with numerous satellite missions offering data at varying temporal and spatial resolutions. Furthermore, new and more advanced missions are being launched or planned at an increasing pace. Despite these advances, using remote sensing to map, monitor, or model dryland traits remains challenging. Drylands are among the most complex and dynamic ecosystems, making them difficult to study.
In this context, we invite studies that explore innovative methods for analyzing dryland characteristics. This session aims to offer a platform for discussing both the advantages and limitations of using remote sensing technologies—including aerial photography, UAVs, LiDAR, Radar, and hyperspectral or multispectral satellite data—in dryland research.
List of topics
- Dryland vegetation condition (e.g., with vegetation indices, time series analysis)
- Mediterranean or dry tropical forest trends
- Dryland forest fires
- Land degradation/desertification assessment
- Savannahs (e.g., monitoring the grass component or the expansion of bushes in the expense of palatable grasses in savannahs)
- Radar applications in drylands
- LiDAR applications in drylands
- Hyperspectral applications in drylands
- Biological soil crusts
- Biomass
- Salinity
- Hydro-geomorphological applications in drylands (including runoff and soil erosion)
Organisers
Elias Symeonakis, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), e.symeonakis (at) mmu.ac.uk
Photo: Elias Symeonakis ©