Observation, Monitoring and Analysis of Savannah Ecosystems

Dear Colleagues,

Savannah ecosystems represent a precious semi-natural resource, covering approximately 20% of the Earth’s land surface and supporting the same proportion of the human population. Savannahs deliver wide-ranging ecosystem services, including biodiversity, wood production, and tourism, and they notably account for around a quarter of global carbon uptake. Savannahs are spatially complex environments, involving widely varying arrangements of woody and grassy cover, and they are influenced in particular by climate, fire regimes, herbivory, and human disturbance. The effective safeguarding and appropriate exploitation of savannahs rely on the accurate knowledge of savannah distributions and dynamics, as well as a clear understanding of savannah processes and drivers. This Special Issue presents the latest research on observing, monitoring, and analyzing savannah ecosystems. Papers are welcome to cover any aspect of savannah research, with example topics including:

• Observation using field-based and/or remote sensing approaches;
• Mapping, monitoring, and prediction of savannah distributions;
• Ecosystem processes;
• Land degradation;
• Bush encroachment;
• Drivers of change;
• Relationship between human activity and natural environment;
• Ecosystem services such as carbon uptake, biodiversity, and tourism.

Prof. Dr. Paul Aplin
Dr. Elias Symeonakis
Prof. Dr. Moses Azong Cho
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• savannah
• monitoring
• degradation
• biodiversity
• climate
• human activity