We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Fumio Yamazaki has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Earth Observation for Emergency Management” in Remote Sensing (ISSN: 2072-4292).

Prof. Dr. Fumio Yamazaki holds M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in civil engineering, both obtained at the University of Tokyo in 1978 and 1987, respectively. From 2003 to 2019, he was a professor in the Graduate School of Engineering at Chiba University. At present, he is the professor emeritus of Chiba University and a research fellow of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention. He is a co-author of more than 200 papers published in technical journals and conference proceedings.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Fumio Yamazaki, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views of the research area and open access publishing:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take on the role of Section Editor-in-Chief?

I have been working on the use of remote sensing technology for natural hazards and disaster mitigation for more than twenty years. The Remote Sensing journal is one of the best opportunities to present our research outcomes worldwide. To promote the remote sensing applications to disaster management, I decided to take the role of the Section Editor-in-Chief.

2. What is your vision for the journal?

Remote sensing is the research field which aims to acquire spatial data from various sensors and to utilize them to solve environmental/social problems. In this regard, Remote Sensing should accept not only methodology oriented papers but also application oriented papers, especially those with ground truth data. The value of validation data is crucial especially for natural hazards and emergency management.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?

Remote sensing is one of the most promising interdisciplinary research fields in science and engineering. From various remote sensing technologies, people can get information on the earth’s surface, atmosphere, ocean, and human settlements without visiting those places, and without time constraints. The development of new sensors and platforms will help us to acquire spatial data, aiming to make the earth and our society more sustainable.

4. What do you think of the development of open access in publishing?

Open access is good for almost everybody even though the article processing charge (APC) is rather high. If you do not belong to large research institutes or universities, it is not so easy to access electronic journals in a timely manner. I believe that open access publishing is becoming more and more important and popular.