Future Prediction and Scenario Analysis of Urbanization Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Dear Colleagues,

Urbanization has garnered a lot of attention from researchers across the globe due to its significant adverse effects on several aspects that touch humans directly or indirectly. These include urban climate, natural resources, infrastructure, life quality, and even social stability. These urban expansion impacts are expected to worsen further in the near and long term as the population is projected to reach over 8 billion by 2030 and 10.4 billion by the end of the century—with more than half anticipated to live in urban areas—according to the United Nations. The negative consequences of population growth and urbanization on the environment at the global level may be exacerbated by unplanned shifts in land use/cover (LULC) at the local level, which, in turn, may exacerbate climate change conditions. Therefore, planning properly based on concrete information is the best policy for minimizing such impacts in the long run.

Using GIS and Remote Sensing techniques, scenario-based prediction and simulation of future urbanization trends and their possible impacts on people and urban ecosystem services are essential from a planning perspective. Such invaluable information could aid city planners and decision-makers in determining how to conveniently manage land resources depending on past and current conditions and plan strategies for future cities to fulfill the mission of SDG 11 to "make cities inclusive, resilient, and sustainable." Technique-wise, several methods have been developed and applied successfully for simulating future LULC changes in general and urban growth in particular. One important goal for advancing the field is to make new simulation models that are more accurate, more efficient, and less demanding in terms of inputs and calculation resources. 

This Special Issue focuses on data, methods, techniques, and empirical outcomes of urbanization studies from a time and space perspective. We wish to showcase your research papers, case studies, conceptual or analytic reviews, and policy-relevant articles to help achieve urban sustainability.

Areas of interest include, but are not necessarily limited to:

• Methodology and dataset for simulating urbanization trends in the future;
• Impacts of future urbanization on ecosystem services;
• Novel techniques for land use/cover monitoring and forecasting with remote sensing and GIS;
• Spatiotemporal mapping of the urbanization process in big cities through empirical studies;
• The spatial relationship between urban heat island intensity and land use/cover distribution in metropolitan areas;
• Scenario simulation based on sustainable development goals (SDGs);
• Spatial differences in land use/cover distribution between developing and developed countries;
• Urban heat island disaster mitigation and adaptation for future urban sustainability;
• Prediction and scenario analysis of urbanization for policy and planning.

Prof. Dr. Yuji Murayama
Dr. Ruci Wang
Dr. Ahmed Derdouri
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. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2700 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.

• urbanization
• future prediction
• scenario simulation
• land use/cover change
• GIS
• remote sensing
• sustainable development
• machine learning
• urban climate
• urban-rural gradient analysis
• SDGs
• time and space
• public health
• urban ecosystem services
• urban living environment
• urban heat island adaptation
• urban planning