Drones for Mapping and Monitoring Wetland Ecosystems

Dear Colleagues,

Drones are a cost-efficient tool that can be used to quickly map any targeted area for many emerging applications in the arena of Wetlands Mapping and Monitoring. Managers, practitioners, companies and scientists are using professional drones equipped with high-resolution visible, multispectral, hyperspectral or thermal cameras, as well as LiDaR sensors, to assess the conservation status of wetlands, the effect of disturbances such as water pollution, harmful blooms, alien species and extreme droughts on wetlands, or the changes in the organisms living in them. We are now at a crucial juncture regarding the utilization of drones over natural, man-made and restored wetlands, moving from contingent missions towards systematic revisiting missions. This is certainly aiding in the periodic retrieval of important data regarding the physico-chemical characteristics of water or the mapping of species distribution.

This Special Issue aims to collect articles regarding the application of drones and their contribution to the enhancement of wetland monitoring and mapping; this is in order to gain a better understanding of the status, threats, changes and trends in wetland conservation. We welcome submissions that provide insights into both purely scientific missions and operational management missions, and whose scope includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:

• The mapping of water physico-chemical parameters;
• Long-term wetland monitoring based on UAVs, ROVs, etc.;
• The mapping of aquatic alien species and harmful blooms;
• Upscaling wetland parameters from in situ to satellite images using drones;
• Sampling wetlands using drones;
• Rapid risk and post-disturbance assessment maps using drones;
• Monitoring wetlands dynamics using drones;
• Mapping essential biodiversity variables and ecosystem services for wetlands;
• Mapping threats, vulnerability and conservation issues for wetlands;
• The mapping of wetlands phenological and temporal trends;
• Wetland hydrological mapping with drones;
• Wetland restoration with drones.

Suggested themes and article types for submissions.

• Scientific reviews
• Scientific papers
• Demonstration and prospective studies

Dr. Ricardo Díaz-Delgado
Guest Editor

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. Drones 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.

• wetlands
• long-term monitoring
• mapping with drones
• survey
• sampling
• conservation
• harmful blooms