Understanding Tree Mortality Patterns: A Comprehensive Review of Remote Sensing and Meteorological Ground-Based Studies

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please find all comments in the ms;

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Author Response

Understanding Tree Mortality Patterns: A Comprehensive Review of Remote Sensing and Meteorological Ground-based Studies

Filippos Eliades, Dimitrios Sarris, Felix Bachofer, Silas Michaelides and Diofantos Hadjimitsis

 

 

Authors’ responses to Reviewer #1

The authors’ responses are given below each comment in blue fonts. Additional or updated paragraphs/sentences are given below the author's response where needed.

All recommendations and suggestions have been adopted.

The authors wish to thank the Reviewer for the comments and suggestions and an acknowledgement is added in the revised version (Lines 871-872):

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the three anonymous Reviewers whose comments and recommendations have led to improvements in the article.

 

Comment line 18: the comma ,

Authors’ response: Fully adopted

Comment line 22: the comma ,

Authors’ response: Fully adopted

Comment line 23: remove “in”

Authors’ response: Fully adopted

Comment line 25: remove “often”

Authors’ response: Fully adopted

Comment line 26: remove “s”

Authors’ response: Fully adopted

Comment line 27: remove “tree”

Authors’ response: sentence moved to introduction as another reviewer suggested and then fully adopted

Comment line 27: remove “ed”

Authors’ response: Fully adopted

Comment line 29: remove “on” and add “at”

Authors’ response: Fully adopted

Comment line 31: remove “have”

Authors’ response: Fully adopted

Comment line 26: add “s”

Authors’ response: Fully adopted

Comment line 46: However, under....

Please check the language carefully! There are numerous grammatical errors as you can see from the correction of the abstract. Try to link the sentences providing a continuous reading flow and make sure your arguments are in the correct syntax.

Authors’ response: Fully adopted. Several improvements have been made in the revised text.

Comment line 48: In general published results are written in the simple past; however, you are using modal verbs - please make sure they are only used where the citied author is unsure of the results!

Authors’ response: Fully adopted. Several improvements have been made in the revised text.

Comment line 61-62: What about e.g. Australia or Southern America? I think the limitation to SE and NA is not justified

Authors’ response: Yes, we agree with the Reviewer; since our article focuses on global scale the sentence "such as Southern Europe and Western North America" was removed.

Comment line 64-66: Please check the official biomes - I could not find one combining coniferous and Mediterranean woodlands!

Authors’ response: sentence change and referred by Allen et al. (Lines 69-73)

Extreme droughts and wet conditions drastically affect vegetation dynamics, causing abrupt yearly changes in phenological cycles [11]. Water limitations primarily impact four biome types: (i) savannas, (ii) conifer forests, (iii) the Mediterranean woodlands, (iv) temperate evergreen and deciduous forests, and (v) evergreen broadleaved tropical forests [10].

Comment line 66-68: Please check the message drawn from the Australian paper citied

Authors’ response: The sentence was removed

Comment line 76: tree mortality does not equal desertification in your main regions of interest (Southern Europe and NW America)

Authors’ response: The review focuses globally

Comment line 90-100: Citations missing

Authors’ response: citations [18] [16] were added (see lines 98 and 100)

Comment line 107: add “A”

Authors’ response: Fully adopted

Comment line 117-119: Is it really possible to monitor drought and climate change? I think you are mixing the patterns derived from RS images with the interpretation of this data which might be linked to climate change or drought effects. Please clarify, shorten, and generally update this section.

Authors’ response: We agree with the Reviewer and the sentence was removed.

Thank you for your comment, this section analyzed meteorological ground-based approach alongside with remote sensing. Analyzing these 2 approaches we can monitor holistically the drought and climate change.

Comment line 121: soil moisture can be monitored in crops and open areas, i doubt it works under forests (comp. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/9/2/104); Please define your aim more clearly - are you talking about forest mortality? Then focus on RS products relevant for monitoring and explaining this!

Authors’ response: We agree with the Reviewer and the sentence was removed.

We thank the Reviewer for the recommendation; the section is updated and shortened. To clarify, we focus on forested tree mortality not urban mortality, utilizing remote sensing and meteorological droughts indicators, separately, that’s why our searching strings include, for example, SPEI, PDSI etc.

Also, it is clarified that mortality refers to forest mortality and not urban in sections Objectives and the Abstract. 

Comment line 239: Figure 1c could be moved to supplement as it listed again below

Authors’ response: Fully adopted. To make it easier to understand the results of the searching strings, the authors moved the searching strings into Supplementary Material S2. The string combinations are provided separately for the remote sensing and meteorological based ones. The detailed workflow is added. As a result of this, the initial export number of articles was changed from 845 to 3124. The articles that were analyzed and the number of articles remain the same.

Comment line 249: By doing so you direct your study in one and one-only direction;

Authors’ response: As mentioned above, to make it easier to understand the results of the searching strings, the Supplementary Materials S2 displays the combinations separately for the remote sensing and the meteorological based papers. As a result, the initial export number of articles was changed from 845 to 3124. The analyzed articles number and articles remained the same

Comment line 259: detected by? Could you please unify the use of earth observation/ remote sensing

Authors’ response: Fully adopted. Terms unified as Remote Sensing.

Comment line 261-263: Did you inlcude or exclude them? Please check the sentence

Authors’ response: Articles referring to tree mortality from “insects”, “pathogens”, “deforestation”, “fire”, “beetle”, “human-induced”, “fertilizers” or ”grazing” etc were excluded. (see lines 211-215)

In a second step, we eliminated manually any publications that remained but did not align with our scope of tree mortality and focus on: non-forested areas, non-use of meteorological indicators/analysis (for meteorological articles only), “insects”, “pathogens”, “deforestation”, “fire”, “beetle”, “human-induced”, “human practices”, “fertilizers” or ”grazing” [the combinations of searching strings of Remote Sensing and Meteorology of articles is given in the Supplementary material S2].

Comment line 264: I understand why you did this but the problem remains that not all countries publish in English which will lead to a bias in your study.

Author response: This sentence was removed because they authors analyzed the particular searching strings and all the articles was in English language.

Comment line 273: again this will cause a bias to certain regions as those species do not guarantee a global coverage which you state you have done

Authors’ response: In the analytical searching string, the term "OR" is preceded, meaning that other tree species are not excluded from the search, but they are added to the results as long as they face mortality. The ones that are the most well-known were included in the searching string.

Comment line 311: turn the barchart around and it will better show that meteo remains stable

Authors’ response: Fully adopted

Comment line 321-324: This could be linked to the bias due to only using English articles and certain species; just an example as India is not covered - I used "tree mortality "India" drought" and immediately got several articles which seem to fit your scope but for the species:

Suresh, H. S., Dattaraja, H. S., & Sukumar, R. (2010). Relationship between annual rainfall and tree mortality in a tropical dry forest: results of a 19-year study at Mudumalai, southern India. Forest Ecology and Management, 259(4), 762-769.

I am not saying that this article needs to be included but the consequences of your selection criteria by e.g. provinding a map of the selected species distribution is needed

 

Authors’ response: The main criteria of our article and even searching strings is to focus on articles, in the case of Meteorology, with relation of meteorological indicators, tree mortality, droughts and not pests, human-induced etc. So that’s why the above article (article include the factor of insects) is not in the list.

Comment line 338: How are global studies represented in this e.g. Allen, C. D., Macalady, A. K., Chenchouni, H., Bachelet, D., McDowell, N., Vennetier, M., ... & Cobb, N. (2010). A global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality reveals emerging climate change risks for forests. Forest ecology and management, 259(4), 660-684.

Authors’ response: Allen et al. focused on tree mortality events globally without any restriction. So, as said above, depending on the criteria of the searching string, we focused on articles relevant to meteorological indicators (SPEI, PDSI, etc), tree mortality, droughts and not pests, human-induced etc.

Comment line 339: What about European studies using ICP Forests data? There have been several e.g. Neumann, M., Mues, V., Moreno, A., Hasenauer, H., & Seidl, R. (2017). Climate variability drives recent tree mortality in Europe. Global change biology, 23(11), 4788-4797.

Gazol, A., & Camarero, J. J. (2022). Compound climate events increase tree drought mortality across European forests. Science of the Total Environment, 816, 151604.

George, J. P., Bürkner, P. C., Sanders, T. G. M., Neumann, M., Cammalleri, C., Vogt, J. V., & Lang, M. (2022). Long‐term forest monitoring reveals constant mortality rise in European forests. Plant Biology, 24(7), 1108-1119.

Authors’ response: -The 1st article does not refer to meteorological indicators for mortality analysis.

-According to the string, the 2nd article is not extracted. It should be noted that if the terms in the search fields are generalized, i.e. mortality in the "Topic", meteorological keywords in the "Topic" and drought keywords in the "Topic", then the results will reach 18000 articles, something impossible to analyze. However, it is mentioned in this article that "Regarding the identified and listed damaging agents, the most important cause were biotic agents, particularly defoliating insects (74,827 cases). This means that drought was ranked second among the 123 listed causes of forest damage". Insects is a limitation term for us.

-The 3rd article does not refer to meteorological indicators for mortality analysis.

Comment line 340-342: I am not sure that the study reveals this due to this before mentioned bias

Authors’ response: It is explained above how our searching strings work.

Comment line 385: It seems from these results that you assesed regional studies but excluded larger-scales, potentially due to the species selection as it would likely be mixed species at larger scales;

However, this sentence is arbitrary to Fig 7 with MODIS at 2nd place which has a resolution of 250m

Authors’ response: This graphic shows the resolution used by studies to monitor their study areas. There were articles that were regional and used MODIS (higher spatial resolution than Landsat for example), where for example 11.9% and 7.9% had over 1000m and 100m spatial resolution respectively. But the most popular is Landsat and that’s why we have 29.5% with 10m to 100m. As explained in “comment line 273” above, the term “OR” does not block other species.

Comment line 497-500: This does not match the biomes listed at the top;

Authors’ response: The biomes at the top referred by Allen et al. as an example of how water limitations depicted through those major biomes. Here, we analyzed detailed the biomes appearing in each case.

Comment line 514: forest mortality?

Authors’ response: There are articles that investigated tree mortality events in the biome of Desert and Xeric Shrublands.

Comment line 519: Source of the map???

Authors’ response: Fully Adopted (see line 509)

Source of the map: https://ecoregions.appspot.com/

[58]

Comment line 552: I think this is the central part of the paper and should be given far more space - is this plausible? Are factors clustering in certain regions? Prevelance of biotic/ abiotic factors?

Authors’ response: -The graphic emerged from our 254 articles globally, since we do not have any geographical restrictions in any in our searching strings, where it was necessary to consider which indicators they used. We categorized all indicators of the articles, according to their capabilities and at the same time we analyzed and joined them with the research focus of each article. Surely this happened based on our own point of view. A Supplementary material S3 file displays which indicators are biotic and abiotic

-We tried to analyze it as best we could, without digressing or missing the point, as this graphic alone could be analyzed over many pages

-references were added in the revised text

The expanded/updated text is given in Lines 523-589:

“3.7.1 Remote Sensing sphere

“The majority of the reviewed studies (81.1%) have based their analysis on applying Remote Sensing methods. ………………………………………………………………………….

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

The establishment of these signals contributes to the timely adoption of measures to protect the ecological functions of forest ecosystems by designing preventive measures such as targeted watering, pest control or thinning.”

 

Comment line 555: Are your search terms really covering for ground based studies? My feeling is that there have been numerous papers on this subject over the last years.

Authors’ response: In our article, the term ground-based implies “meteorological ground-based” methods such as (SPEI or PDSI etc). In the revised version, this is now clarified in the revised title and throughout the revised text by using a coherent definition: “meteorological ground-based”.

The authors are grateful to the Reviewer for pointing out this issue.

Comment line 661-662: Mainly you are presenting a review of existing literature; please do change the focus of the ms to match this sentence as suggested on page 21.

Authors’ response: Fully adopted (see lines 700-703):

This review represents the first comprehensive examination of forest tree mortality that combines Remote Sensing and Meteorological ground-based approaches, identifying research gaps and highlighting the increasing trend due to the availability of open high-resolution satellite data [130, 131]

Comment line 740-742: As far as I know there are no spruce variants in South America and there are certainly none in Africa, so it is hardly surprising there are no articles on their mortality rates in these countries! Same stands for juniper!

Authors’ response: Fully adopted, the sentence was removed.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The review paper is well-written, providing an excellent dissection of the available literature on the topic of tree mortality assessment. The author has effectively explored various tree mortality assessment methods, offering a detailed and insightful overview. The paper's strengths lie in its thorough analysis and clear presentation of the current state of research in this field. However, there are a few areas for improvement as mentioned below. 

Suggestions:

1. The author should take into account the varying dynamics of tree mortality assessment in different contexts, including large and small countries, as well as countries with high population density that necessitates continuous alteration of tree vegetation. For instance, while China is frequently mentioned as a representative of Asia, the paper overlooks other significant countries such as India and smaller, densely populated countries like Bangladesh. Addressing these variations can provide a more comprehensive understanding of tree mortality in diverse settings.

2. The author could be more meticulous in identifying gaps in the current research and suggesting possible areas for further investigation. Providing a detailed analysis of existing research limitations and proposing specific future research directions would strengthen the paper and contribute to advancing the field.

Author Response

Understanding Tree Mortality Patterns: A Comprehensive Review of Remote Sensing and Meteorological Ground-based Studies

Filippos Eliades, Dimitrios Sarris, Felix Bachofer, Silas Michaelides and Diofantos Hadjimitsis

 

Authors’ response to Reviewer #2

The authors’ responses are given below each comment in blue fonts. Additional or updated paragraphs/sentences are given below the author's response where needed.

The authors wish to thank the Reviewer for the comments and suggestions and an acknowledgement is added in the revised version (Lines 871-872):

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the three anonymous Reviewers whose comments and recommendations have led to improvements in the article.

Comment #1: 1. The author should take into account the varying dynamics of tree mortality assessment in different contexts, including large and small countries, as well as countries with high population density that necessitates continuous alteration of tree vegetation. For instance, while China is frequently mentioned as a representative of Asia, the paper overlooks other significant countries such as India and smaller, densely populated countries like Bangladesh. Addressing these variations can provide a more comprehensive understanding of tree mortality in diverse settings.

Authors’ response: Thank you for your comment.

In the searching string combinations (Supplement 2) there is no country or tree species restriction. The search engine returned results and the results were evaluated based on some restrictions stated in the final version of the article in section 4.1. It is possible that India and Bangladesh met these restrictions and conditions or the search engine did not return articles in these areas. Also, a basic limitation was that mortality should belong purely to climatic data and not be influenced by human factors, insects, fires, etc.

* In the analytical searching string in the tree mortality field, the term "OR" is preceded of tree species, meaning that other tree species are not excluded from the search, but they are added to the results as long as they face mortality. The ones that are the most well-known were included in the searching string.

Comment #2: The author could be more meticulous in identifying gaps in the current research and suggesting possible areas for further investigation. Providing a detailed analysis of existing research limitations and proposing specific future research directions would strengthen the paper and contribute to advancing the field

Authors’ response: Thank you for your comment.

Tree mortality is a complex and intricate process. We cannot state a possible approach to tree mortality study as conditions and circumstances differ from each other. We provide evidence in the detailed analysis in Section 3. In results in Section 4.4 we provide a guideline as to which indicators were widely used and which were less. If this is combined with spatial analysis, then future studies are planned for a broader approach.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript provides a comprehensive review of current research on tree mortality, focusing on remote sensing and ground-based studies. The authors have compiled 254 studies and offer an organized overview of the methods and findings in this field, covering a broad range of relevant topics.

Overall, the research questions are clearly stated in the introduction, giving direction to the review. The methods for selecting and analysing the literature are well described, including the search strategy and inclusion/exclusion criteria. The results are presented logically, addressing aspects like spatial distribution, temporal scales, sensors used, and indicators applied. The manuscript includes informative figures and tables to visualize the findings.

Despite this, some critical issues should be taken into consideration by the authors, and my comments are as follows:

- The abstract should be shortened, and lines 24-27 should be moved to the Introduction."

- Line 19-20: "Herein, we present the first global assessment and a historical perspective of tree mortality..." It might be helpful to clarify what is meant by "the first global assessment" and how this work differs from previous reviews.

- Line 141-154: The objectives and structure of the review are clearly stated, but it would be beneficial to provide a brief summary of the key findings and their significance in this introductory section.

- The introduction could benefit from a more robust theoretical framing of why understanding tree mortality patterns is essential from an ecological or climate change perspective.

- Some results sections are pretty descriptive, with limited critical analysis of the findings, for instance: In the section describing the spatial distribution of reviewed research articles (Section 3.2), the authors provide a detailed account of where studies have been conducted, such as: "Remotely Sensed tree mortality research studies are more frequently in the United States of America (65) followed by the Spain (16), China (13), Australia (9), Canada (9), Italy (7) and Germany (6)." While this information is valuable, there is limited analysis of why these geographical patterns exist or their implications for the field.

In Section 3.3, which discusses temporal scale and spatial resolution, the authors state: "The average time span of all tree mortality studies is approximately 39 years. Remote Sensing articles cover an average time span of about 11 years." This observation could benefit from a more critical analysis of why this difference exists and what it means for the quality and comprehensiveness of the research in this field.

In Section 3.4 about Earth Observation sensors distribution, the authors provide percentages of sensor usage: "Roughly, 88% of studies monitoring tree mortality used multispectral sensors. At the same time, active sensors were the least utilized, accounting for nearly 6.4% of total studies." There's limited discussion on why this disparity exists, what advantages or limitations different sensor types might have, or how this distribution might impact the field's understanding of tree mortality.

- To improve these sections, the authors could add more interpretive analysis. This would elevate the manuscript from a descriptive review to a more critically analytical one.

 

- Finally, the discussion section does not thoroughly address the limitations of the review methodology itself.

Author Response

Understanding Tree Mortality Patterns: A Comprehensive Review of Remote Sensing and Meteorological Ground-based Studies

Filippos Eliades, Dimitrios Sarris, Felix Bachofer, Silas Michaelides and Diofantos Hadjimitsis

 

Authors’ response to Reviewer #3

The authors’ responses are given below each comment in blue fonts. Additional or updated paragraphs/sentences are given below the author's response where needed.

All recommendations and suggestions have been adopted.

The authors wish to thank the Reviewer for the comments and suggestions and an acknowledgement is added in the revised version (Lines 871-872):

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the three anonymous Reviewers whose comments and recommendations have led to improvements in the article.

Comment #1: The abstract should be shortened, and lines 24-27 should be moved to the Introduction."

Authors’ response: Comment adopted. Lines 24-27 of the original version are now within the Introduction  (see lines 65-68):

Forested ecosystems, especially in the Mediterranean area, appear to have experienced climatic-induced physiological stress under extreme droughts and warming, raising concerns that forests may become increasingly vulnerable to mortality.

Comment #2: Line 19-20: "Herein, we present the first global assessment and a historical perspective of tree mortality..." It might be helpful to clarify what is meant by "the first global assessment" and how this work differs from previous reviews.

Authors’ response: The comment is adopted. The following text was inserted (see lines 140-144):

This is the first global assessment and a historical perspective of forest tree mortality from a Remote Sensing perspective, alongside Meteorological ground-based approaches, providing an analysis of the indicators employed, the methods used, and the spatiotemporal resolution adopted, while identifying relevant deficiencies and gaps, upon which future research directions are proposed.

Comment #3: Line 141-154: The objectives and structure of the review are clearly stated, but it would be beneficial to provide a brief summary of the key findings and their significance in this introductory section.

Authors’ response: The comment is adopted. The following text was inserted (see lines 130-133):

The optical sensors onboard Landsat and MODIS constitute the primary source of data, with NDVI being the most common indicator in mortality detection. Monitoring tree growth, water content and physiological responses using remotely sensed data has enhanced further the interest of the scientific community in studying forest tree mortality.

 

(see lines 150-152):

In the upcoming sections, we provide details of our review method (Section 2), and the results related to the research questions set (Section 3). In Section 4, the implications of the findings are discussed, followed by conclusions and future outlook in Section 5.

Comment #4: The introduction could benefit from a more robust theoretical framing of why understanding tree mortality patterns is essential from an ecological or climate change perspective.

Authors’ response: The comment is adopted. The following text was inserted (see lines 49-54):

Significant uncertainty exists as to how these effects and relevant processes will impact the risk of future tree mortality events within the context of a changing climate. While a mix of responses are to be expected, instances of increased tree mortality due to drought and/or high temperature may already be occurring in some areas in response to global climate change (notable examples of recent tree mortality events are well documented in Section 3).

Comment #5: Some results sections are pretty descriptive, with limited critical analysis of the findings, for instance: In the section describing the spatial distribution of reviewed research articles (Section 3.2), the authors provide a detailed account of where studies have been conducted, such as: "Remotely Sensed tree mortality research studies are more frequently in the United States of America (65) followed by the Spain (16), China (13), Australia (9), Canada (9), Italy (7) and Germany (6)." While this information is valuable, there is limited analysis of why these geographical patterns exist or their implications for the field.

Authors’ response: The comment is adopted. The following text was inserted (see lines 270-278):

Tree mortality events in diverse ecosystems, from monsoonal savannas with less than 400mm of annual precipitation to sub-alpine forests in Mediterranean climates and tropical rainforests receiving more than 3000mm of annual precipitation, are gathering high attention from researchers. Extensive die-offs are often linked with prolonged water shortages, such as those experienced in savannas and temperate conifer forests during multi-year droughts. In the case of temperate forests, short-term seasonal droughts are more likely to lead to mortality in broadleaved (deciduous angiosperm) trees rather than conifers (evergreen needleleaf trees), due to their higher vulnerability to xylem cavitation [10].

Comment #5b

-In Section 3.3, which discusses temporal scale and spatial resolution, the authors state: "The average time span of all tree mortality studies is approximately 39 years. Remote Sensing articles cover an average time span of about 11 years." This observation could benefit from a more critical analysis of why this difference exists and what it means for the quality and comprehensiveness of the research in this field.

Authors’ response: The comment is adopted. The following text was inserted (see lines 351-355):

In response to this evidence, tree mortality can be a slow and gradual process, requiring long-term monitoring, to document its dynamics and the factors affecting it. An extended timeframe allows for a more detailed understanding of long-term ecological trends favoring the Meteorological ground-based approach, as opposed to Remote Sensing that undoubtedly offers large-scale information on forest health.

 

Comment #5c

In Section 3.4 about Earth Observation sensors distribution, the authors provide percentages of sensor usage: "Roughly, 88% of studies monitoring tree mortality used multispectral sensors. At the same time, active sensors were the least utilized, accounting for nearly 6.4% of total studies." There's limited discussion on why this disparity exists, what advantages or limitations different sensor types might have, or how this distribution might impact the field's understanding of tree mortality.

Authors’ response: The comment is adopted. The following text was inserted (see lines 406-419):

Passive sensors, including multispectral and hyperspectral optical sensors, rely on solar radiation reflected from Earth’s surface and are sensitive to atmospheric conditions such as clouds and haze. While passive sensors like those on Landsat and MODIS were the most popular (88%) for their high spatial and temporal resolution, they can face challenges with cloud cover, affecting their ability to accurately analyze dynamic changes. In contrast, a considerable number of studies (6.4%) relied on active microwave sensors, namely LiDAR and SAR sensors, generating their own radiation, which is measured after interacting with an object. LiDAR uses light in visible and infrared wavelengths, while SAR uses microwave radiation to assess backscatter. Active sensors are less affected by atmospheric conditions like clouds, making them valuable for reliable data collection. Although LiDAR is well-suited for topographic and altimetry studies, it is commonly used for forest biomass and structure. Overall, the choice between passive and active sensors depends on the specific needs of the study, such as spatial resolution, temporal frequency, and atmospheric conditions.

Comment #6: - Finally, the discussion section does not thoroughly address the limitations of the review methodology itself.

Authors’ response: A new sub-section on limitations was inserted (see lines 683-696):

 

4.1 Limitations of review methodology

 

In this review, the focus was put on the applications of Meteorological ground-based and Remote Sensing methods on forest’s tree mortality. An initial search in Meteorological related publications, utilized keywords relevant to meteorology, drought and mortality. Our Web of Science search returned more than 18000 results. In view of this, we worked with several combinations to reduce the results to about 1000. Eliminating meteorological articles that did not report on meteorological indicators (such as PDSI, SPEI etc.) or detailed meteorological analysis, resulted in a reduced number of articles. Continuing, in both the Meteorology and Remote Sensing approaches, we excluded articles that mentioned tree mortality on non-forest areas or insects or pests or pathogens or fire or beetle or grazing or pasture or harvesting and cutting. Lastly, it is worth noting the date of accession of Web of Science, namely 16 October 2023, as this affects the final number of results.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf