Climate changes are occurring in every region globally. According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6)), the chances of crossing the global warming level of 1.5°C or even 2°C in the coming decades are concrete if a rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at large a scale is not realized. However, there are more issues than just temperature. Climate change is bringing multiple different changes to different regions—which will all be exacerbated with further warming. These include changes in the water cycle (intensive rainfall and associated flooding, intensive drought, erratic rainfall patterns, etc.) with different intensities by region.

In this global context, the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), have underlined the need for an increase in crop productivity and quality based on scientific and sustainable practices to improve resource use efficiency (water and nutrient), thereby also contributing to meeting the broader aims of food security, rural development and livelihood enhancement.

Climate change can negatively affect the suitability of current agricultural areas to food production, undermining the resilience of agriculture systems. Temperature changes can directly influence the duration of the growing season or the establishment of different phenological stages, determining a territory’s suitability for specific crop cultivation. A reduction in rainfall can affect a crop’s water availability and thereby its yield, without considering the possible direct effects of the expected increased risk of extreme events (heat waves, intensive rainfall, etc.). In the cropping systems’ management, the expected conditions imply a change in the current type and timing of agronomic practices (e.g., sowing and harvesting date, fertilization, irrigation) and offer the opportunity to define novel strategies of adaptation to and mitigation of future climates.

Based on these premises, modern farmers need to be jugglers able to produce healthy food (SDG 2&3), protect ground and surface water quality (SDG6), conserve energy (SDG7), support climate mitigation by carbon capture and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (SDG13), and protect life on land by soil conservation and by enhancing biodiversity (SDG15) under climate change.

The scientific community is called upon to support the farmers in their activities by evaluating climate change’s effects on agricultural systems, identifying and scientifically assessing sustainable practices, and providing them with clear prospects for the future.

This Special Issue calls for original and innovative manuscripts related to recent research on Evaluating the Effects of Climate Change on Agricultural Systems’ Adaptations. The topics of the submitted manuscripts may include:

• Analysis of the effect of climate change on agricultural systems through simulation modeling.

• Identification of the best agronomic practices for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change.

• The development and application of innovative sensors or technologies in the field or remotely to monitor the effect of climate change.

• The development and application of DSS systems to help farmers face climate change.

This Special Issue welcomes diverse article types, including original research, reviews, and perspective papers (upon consultation with the Editors).

Dr. Antonello Bonfante

Prof. Dr. Luca Brillante

Dr. Alessia Perego

Remote and Proximal Sensing Applied to Agriculture andRemote and proximal sensing technologies enable the acquisition of diverse spatial data both in agriculture and in forestry, and they represent one of the pillars of the digital agriculture and forestry. New-generation satellites hosting hyperspectral cameras (e.g., Hyperion, EnMap, Shalom, Prisma) along with price decreases in multi- and hyperspectral cameras as well as thermal cameras for airborne and UAV platforms have laid the foundation for important steps ahead in land monitoring. In terms of proximal sensing, innovative platforms ranging from handheld, robotics, and tractor-embedded sensors have been developed in recent years. This Special Issue calls for original and innovative manuscripts related to recent research and activities that demonstrate the proficient use of remote and/or proximal sensing techniques in agriculture and forestry. The topics of the submitted manuscripts include:

• The applications of innovative sensors or technologies for soil, crops, and forest monitoring

• Uncertainty and accuracy of remote/proximal sensing techniques

• Multisource data integration

• Predictive models based on remote and/or proximal sensing data

• Comparisons of different techniques

• Remotely and proximally sensed-assisted agricultural practices

• Remote sensing of forest disturbances (wildfire, droughts, biotic stresses, etc.)

This Special Issue welcomes diverse types of articles including original research, reviews, and perspective papers (upon consultation with the Editors).

Editors:

Dr. Simone Priori

Dr. Antonello Bonfante

Dr. Anna Brook

The United Nations has proposed 17 sustainable development goals, which present a clear challenge to not only national governments but also a wide range of stakeholders. Every nation has to implement these goals to achieve the agreed targets by 2030. Most of these are focused on the biophysical management of environments while others more oriented to socio-economic focus. Still, in general, they are interconnected because to achieve goals with an ecosystem focus, we need to consider the socio-economic aspect.

For example, environmental sustainability depends on the actions of land users such as farmers and forest managers, but also urban developments have significant effects on local land use. The environmental changes are nowadays clearly detectable by using global Earth observation systems and remote sensing technologies. Every scientific discipline faces the challenge of acting upon these SDGs, and they have the responsibility to provide all stakeholders with information that allows them to make informed choices. In this context, we promote a special issue on "Monitoring Sustainable Development Goals" to support the achievement of SDGs and help the involved stakeholders. We encourage the submission of research papers that address the main topic of the special issue, including those based on the exploitation of geospatial data. Among other, we expect contributions that can cover multi-disciplinary aspects such as i) the preservation of the natural heritage, ii) the sustainable development, iii) the improvement of the social resilience to environmental changes, iv) the application and development of geospatial techniques for the monitoring of land-use/land-changes, v) the socio-economical impacts of global climate changes.

Guest editors:

Dr. Antonello Bonfante

Dr. Anna Brook

Dr. Antonio Pepe

Viticulture is one of the most important agricultural sectors with a global area under vineyards of about 7,500,000 hectares, a global annual wine production of about 250 million of hl, and an annual trade of more than 30 billion euros. Relationships between the physical environment (climate, morphology, soil) and human actions through agricultural practices (cultivar selection, plant management, soil management, etc.) address the grape, and wine, quality and quantity.

This process is not confined to agricultural fields, but it also includes wine-making techniques and wine marketing based on territories, often protected through geographical denominations of origin in many countries. The French term of “Terroir” links the quality and typicity of wine to the territory. In particular, it identifies specific environmental characteristics that affect the plant response and eventually, the wine peculiarities. The environmental factors that drive the “terroir effect” vary in space and time, as well as soil and crop management. A good understanding of the spatial variability of some environmental factors (e.g., soil) is very important to manage and preserve terroirs and face the current and future issue of climate change. In this context it is important to stress that, in the last decade, the study of terroir has shifted from a largely descriptive regional science to a more applied, technical research field including: sensors for mapping and monitoring environmental variables, remote sensing and drones use for crop monitoring, forecast models, the use of microelements and isotopes for wine traceability, and metagenome approach to study the biogeochemical cycles of nutrients. Moreover, public awareness of ecosystem functioning has led to more quantitative approaches in evidencing the relations between management and the ecosystem services of vineyard agroecosystems. Agroecology approaches in vineyards, like the use of cover crops, straw mulching, and organic amendments, are developing to improve biodiversity, organic matter, soil water and nutrient retention and preservation from soil erosion. In this general context, this Research Topic will address several aspects of viticultural terroirs, in particular:

1) The quantification and spatial modelling of terroir components that influence plant growth, fruit composition and quality, mostly examining climate-soil-water relationships;

2) Terroir concept resilience to climate change;

3) Wine traceability and zoning based on microelements and isotopes; and

4) The interaction between vineyard management practices and effects on soil and water quality, as well as biodiversity and related ecosystem services.

Manuscripts submitted to this Research Topic can have one of a number of formats: original research articles, reviews, mini-reviews on specific topics, reviews of recent books, or short opinion pieces.

Topic Editors:

Simone Priori

Antonello Bonfante

Emmanuelle Vaudour

Silvia Winter

Sandro Conticelli

Luca Brillante

This special issue aims to present recent results and advances in approaches to investigate and understand environmental systems, with a focus on the study of the interaction between environmental processes occurring at different scales. These advances have paved the way to the design and implementation of multi-platform remote and in-situ sensing systems, and tools for surveillance and monitoring. In particular, special attention is devoted to the development of new techniques and integrated instrumentation for multiscale monitoring of areas affected by high natural risks, such as volcanic, seismic, slope instability and other environmental contexts

Guest Editors:

Dr. Pietro Tizzani

Dr. Luca D’Auria

Dr. NemesioPerez

Dr. Antonello Bonfante

Dr. Francesco Soldovieri