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        <title>Frontiers in Remote Sensing | New and Recent Articles</title>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/remote-sensing</link>
        <description>RSS Feed for Frontiers in Remote Sensing | New and Recent Articles</description>
        <language>en-us</language>
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        <pubDate>2026-08-16T00:25:58.188+00:00</pubDate>
        <ttl>60</ttl>
        <item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1843759</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1843759</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Testing a computed tomography imaging spectrometer for Earth observations on the HEIMDAL stratospheric balloon mission]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-08-13T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Mads Juul Ahlebæk</author><author>Albertino Antonio Almeida Bach</author><author>Loui Collin-Enoch</author><author>Christian Cordes</author><author>Boas Hermansson</author><author>Christian Hald Jessen</author><author>Søren Peter Jørgensen</author><author>Tobias Jørgensen</author><author>Viktor Ulrich Kanstrup</author><author>Laurits Tværmose Nielsen</author><author>Jes Enok Steinmüller</author><author>Mads Svanborg Peters</author><author>Jonathan Merrison</author><author>René Lynge Eriksen</author><author>Christoffer Karoff</author><author>Mads Toudal Frandsen</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Stratospheric high-altitude balloons (HABs) have great potential as remote sensing platforms for Earth observations, complementing orbiting satellites and low-flying drones. At altitudes of 20–35 km, HABs operate significantly closer to the ground than orbiting satellites but significantly higher than most drones. Therefore, HABs offer unique potential for high-spatial-resolution imaging with large-area coverage. Two other imaging parameters important for Earth observation applications are spectral resolution and spectral range. Hence, in this work, we present the development and testing of a hyperspectral imaging system capable of recording near-video-rate images in narrow contiguous spectral bands from a HAB platform. In particular, we present the first stratospheric environmental tests and HAB flight of a snapshot hyperspectral camera based on computed tomography imaging spectroscopy, which is well-suited to address the challenges posed by the motion of the HAB platform and stratospheric environment. We successfully acquired images with the system under both simulated stratospheric conditions in the Mars Simulation Laboratory at Aarhus University and a 5-h HAB flight mission named HEIMDAL from Kiruna in October 2024 as part of the REXUS/BEXUS 34/35 2024 campaign organized by DLR-SNSA. This study represents a step toward deploying the HAB platform for high-quality land-cover classification.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1803946</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1803946</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Integrated eco-environmental risk mapping in the mountainous tropical landscapes of the Western Ghats, Kerala]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-08-13T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>J. Drisiya</author><author>Sarmistha Singh</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Rapid tourism expansion and infrastructure growth in the Western Ghats are reshaping ecological stability in steep, topographically complex landscapes that still retain substantial forest cover. These changes are intensifying habitat fragmentation, degrading ecosystems, and placing increasing pressure on biodiversity-rich environments. Focusing on Idukki district in southern India, this study integrates the Urban Nature Access (UNA) and Habitat Risk Assessment (HRA) modules within the InVEST framework to quantify how accessibility-driven development influences habitat vulnerability between 2011 and 2025. Results reveal a widening spatial imbalance between population demand and accessible natural areas, with strongly negative urban nature balance values expanding across valley settlements and plantation corridors by 2025. Built-up land exhibits the highest mean habitat risk (R̄ = 0.42), followed by plantations (R̄ = 0.38) and croplands (R̄ = 0.34), while deciduous forests (R̄ = 0.22) and water bodies (R̄ = 0.05) remain comparatively less vulnerable. More than one-third of built-up and plantation landscapes fall within medium to high-risk categories. Spatial overlap between high-risk zones and documented landslide-affected areas during the 2018–2020 extreme monsoon events highlight the cumulative impact of tourism-driven development and associated forest conversion on steep slopes. The findings demonstrate that ecological vulnerability in Idukki is closely linked to localized forest loss and land-use transformation driven by concentrated human activities in hazard-prone terrain. These patterns highlight how steep and environmentally sensitive landscapes are increasingly affected by development pressures. This underscores the need to integrate ecosystem accessibility metrics with slope-sensitive land-use planning in tropical mountain systems.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1931285</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1931285</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Editorial: Rising stars in remote sensing 2025: advancements in time series analysis]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-08-11T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Editorial</category>
        <author>Jane Southworth</author><author>Nicolas Baghdadi</author>
        <description></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1888267</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1888267</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Estimation of GPP in northern hemisphere terrestrial ecosystems based on light use efficiency model and chlorophyll fluorescence]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-08-04T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Ziwei Deng</author><author>Meizhen Xiang</author><author>Shudan Chen</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Gross primary productivity (GPP) is a crucial indicator for understanding the global carbon cycle and climate change. Sun-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF) provides a direct link to plant photosynthesis, offering a novel approach for GPP estimation in terrestrial ecosystems. Given the complex factors influencing the canopy SIF–GPP relationship and the limited generality of empirical linear models, we developed a Light Use Efficiency (LUE) model incorporating the photochemical reflectance index (PRI) and structural vegetation indices, with a nonlinear function fitted using support vector machine regression. The model was evaluated across multiple vegetation types, SIF products, and vegetation indices to identify optimal SIF–VI combinations. Results indicate that training by vegetation type improves accuracy by 8.5%–14.4%, with shrublands and evergreen broadleaf forests showing the best performance. The combination of GOSIF with NDVI achieved the highest overall estimation accuracy across all vegetation types. Additionally, the combination of GOME-2 SIF with NDVI × NIRv performed best in inland arid low-GPP regions, while TCSIF with NDVI × NIRv was most accurate in cold high-latitude low-GPP regions. All three combinations effectively captured interannual GPP variations at individual sites. Using these combinations, monthly GPP from 2007 to 2014 was estimated and compared with GPP-MODIS and GPP-GLASS datasets, showing consistent temporal and spatial patterns that reflect seasonal dynamics in the Northern Hemisphere. These findings demonstrate that integrating SIF with targeted vegetation indices enhances GPP estimation and provides a robust framework for large-scale photosynthesis monitoring.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1919576</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1919576</link>
        <title><![CDATA[DBF-YOLO: a lightweight dual-branch fusion method for Visible-SAR cross-modal remote sensing target detection]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-08-04T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Xiaofeng Zhao</author><author>Chenxiao Li</author><author>Hui Zhang</author><author>Kehao Wang</author><author>Fan Zhang</author><author>Hanshuo Huo</author><author>Zhili Zhang</author>
        <description><![CDATA[In visible-SAR cross-modal remote sensing target detection tasks, due to the significant differences between the two modalities in imaging mechanisms and feature representations, as well as the susceptibility of SAR images to speckle noise interference and the inadequate utilization of structural information, existing methods often struggle to balance detection accuracy with model lightweighting and practical deployment requirements. This is particularly true in resource-constrained scenarios, such as space-borne or airborne platforms, where models need to have low parameter counts, reduced computational overhead, and robust adaptability to complex environments. To address these issues, this paper proposes a lightweight dual-branch fusion network, DBF-YOLO, for visible-SAR cross-modal remote sensing target detection. Based on the YOLOv10 framework, the method constructs a visible-SAR dual-branch feature extraction structure and designs an intermediate cross-modal fusion path at three levels (P3, P4, P5) to achieve progressive interaction of dual-modal features at different scales. To overcome the strong speckle noise and edge degradation in SAR images, a SAR Gradient Enhancement Module (SGM) is introduced to enhance the structural representation capability of SAR inputs. Additionally, an Adaptive Gated Dual-Modal Fusion Module (AGD) is proposed to enable dynamic selection and effective complementarity of dual-modal information based on different scales and spatial positions. Experimental results on the OGSOD 1.0 dataset show that DBF-YOLO achieves 94.4% mAP50% and 70.1% mAP50-95, with only 5.0 M parameters and 20.5 GFLOPs, striking a good balance between detection accuracy and computational complexity. Furthermore, experimental results on the OSPRC dataset demonstrate the robustness of DBF-YOLO under different resolutions, polarization modes, and cloud cover conditions. Particularly in low-contrast dense target scenes and cloud cover conditions, the model demonstrates stronger environmental adaptability. This method can provide a reference for designing lightweight multi-modal remote sensing target detection models and deploying them on resource-limited platforms.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1843209</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1843209</link>
        <title><![CDATA[AI-driven prediction of plant physiological traits in hemp using UAV-based multispectral imagery]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-08-04T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Harjot Sidhu</author><author>Arnab Bhowmik</author><author>Harmandeep Sharma</author>
        <description><![CDATA[IntroductionIndustrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is a multipurpose bio‐economy crop capable of producing fiber, grain, and biomass while contributing to soil health and carbon sequestration. Realizing this potential requires optimized nitrogen (N) management, as N strongly regulates plant growth, yield, and fiber quality, while inefficient or excessive N use can cause environmental harm. Conventional N diagnostics based on destructive sampling are labor‐intensive and lack the spatial resolution needed for precision management. Uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) multispectral imaging offers a high-throughput, non‐destructive alternative; however, hemp remains underrepresented in UAV‐based N studies, particularly in linking spectral data to physiological traits associated with N metabolism.MethodsTo address this gap, two field experiments were conducted at the North Carolina A&T State University research farm using dual‐purpose and fiber‐type hemp cultivars under contrasting N regimes during the 2024 and 2025 growing seasons. Multispectral imagery was collected using a WingtraOne GEN II UAV equipped with a MicaSense RedEdge‐P camera. From reflectance mosaics, 33 vegetation indices (VIs) were computed, and the top seven were selected using Spearman's correlation analysis. Ground measurements included SPAD chlorophyll readings and gas‐exchange traits, i.e., net photosynthetic rate (Pn), stomatal conductance (Gs), and transpiration rate (E), using a LI‐COR 6800 system. Using SAS Viya, multiple supervised learning models were developed to predict SPAD, Pn, Gs, and E from UAV‐derived VIs.ResultsRed‐edge and green‐based indices showed very strong correlations with SPAD (ρ = 0.9078−0.9375), while NDWI showed a strong negative relationship (ρ = −0.9623). For Pn, GNDVI and CIG were strongly correlated (ρ ≈ 0.89), with NDWI negatively associated (ρ = −0.8934). Gs and E exhibited moderate correlations (ρ ≈ 0.73−0.84 and 0.75−0.80). Linear regression achieved R2 = 0.88 for SPAD, while a generalized additive model predicted Pn with R2 = 0.87. Quantile regression performed best for Gs and E (R2 = 0.82 and 0.75; Gs: ASE ≈0.013, MAE ≈0.086; E: ASE ≈0.0003, MAE ≈0.014).DiscussionThese results demonstrate a scalable framework for UAV‐based phenotyping to support precision N management in hemp.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1814582</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1814582</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Comparative machine learning classification of a heterogeneous Ramsar wetland using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 imagery with quantity and allocation disagreement diagnostics]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-31T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Cornelia Chifurira</author><author>Erwin Sieben</author><author>Irvin Shandu</author><author>Sifiso Xulu</author>
        <description><![CDATA[IntroductionStrategic and active management of protected and heterogeneous wetland landscapes requires timely, accurate, and spatially explicit land-use and land-cover (LULC) information. This study presents a comprehensive landscape-level characterisation of LULC across South Africa’s first proclaimed World Heritage and Ramsar site, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park (IWP), and its surrounding areas.MethodsMulti-season Sentinel-2 imagery acquired in 2025 (autumn: March‐May; spring: September‐November) was integrated with Sentinel-1 backscatter, topographic variables, and ancillary datasets to enhance class separability in this complex environment. A total of 6,588 training samples and 2,358 validation samples were used to classify eight LULC classes, including open water, wetland, planted forest, natural forest, cropland, grassland, barren, and built-up areas, using four machine learning algorithms: Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Classification and Regression Trees (CART), and K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN). Classification performance was evaluated using confusion‐matrix metrics (overall, producer’s, and user’s accuracy), complemented by quantity disagreement (QD) and allocation disagreement (AD) to distinguish between proportional and spatial allocation errors.ResultsRF achieved the highest overall accuracy (0.91), followed by SVM (0.88), CART (0.87), and KNN (0.84). Class‐based analysis showed that spectrally distinct classes, such as open water, achieved very high accuracy (<0.90), whereas heterogeneous classes, including wetlands and grassland, exhibited lower accuracy due to spectral similarity. Misclassification errors were spatially clustered, primarily along wetland‐upland boundaries. Uncertainty metrics further indicated low classification confidence in areas with mixed vegetation and hydrologically dynamic conditions.DiscussionThe methodological novelty of this study lies in integrating full spatial coverage classification with disagreement-based accuracy analysis and spatially explicit uncertainty scrutiny, providing a robust evaluation and baseline for long-term LULC monitoring and conservation planning in complex wetland systems.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1839369</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1839369</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Leveraging large language models (LLMs) for GeoAI-enabled digital agro-advisory]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-31T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Review</category>
        <author>Shalini Gakhar</author><author>Raj Kumar Singh</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Digital agriculture has undergone a profound transformation driven by rapid advances in Earth observation, unmanned aerial vehicles and advanced data processing techniques. Despite this progress, climate-smart agriculture management faces a critical challenge: a farmer-centric agro-advisory system. Farmers and extension workers have limited access to GeoAI-based agro-advisory services, primarily due to limited data access and insufficient technical support. This study synthesises the potential of Large Language Models to address this challenge by translating complex GeoAI data into actionable and human-centric advice. The review examines gaps, recent advancements, and the model architectures required to adapt general-purpose LLMs for remote-sensing-based crop monitoring and management. We distinguish between experimentally validated capabilities of LLMs and the broader prospective applications proposed for agricultural remote sensing, noting that many current advances are primarily driven by multimodal foundation models, computer vision, and GeoAI systems rather than standalone LLMs. The study highlights the importance of advanced Retrieval-Augmented Generation and Supervised Fine-Tuning in agronomic science and mitigating the risk of misinterpretation. Further, we examine the emerging capabilities of multimodal approaches, which can seamlessly integrate visualisation and textual reasoning to support stakeholders in assessing crop health conditions and biophysical anomalies. The representative case studies, spanning multiple geographies and including voice-based advisory systems, demonstrate the shift from static advisory tools to dynamic, interactive recommendation systems. We highlight current challenges, such as the need for region-specific fine-tuning, data governance, and operation in low-connectivity environments, and advocate for a “human-in-the-loop” approach to decision-making. Through this, the LLMs will function as co-pilots assisting multiple stakeholders rather than as autonomous decision-makers vulnerable to biased output or hallucination problems. The review concludes by outlining a forward-looking research scope and closed-loop systems that iteratively learn from field outcomes.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1819365</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1819365</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Hyperspectral indices and global fluorescence: how PACE vegetation indices correlate with terrestrial photosynthesis]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-30T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Caleb S. Harmon</author><author>K. Fred Huemmrich</author><author>Randolph H. Wynne</author><author>Valerie A. Thomas</author><author>Rui Cheng</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) is a direct remotely sensed indicator of photosynthetic activity and plant physiological status. However, its application is limited by coarse spatial resolution and data gaps. The NASA PACE mission offers hyperspectral observations that may help address these limitations through its Ocean Color Instrument and associated Land Vegetation Index (LANDVI) products. This study evaluates the strength of the relationship between PACE-derived vegetation indices and TROPOMI SIF across diverse global biomes. Using 8-day global composites from 2024, we demonstrate strong spatial and temporal correlations between PACE vegetation indices and TROPOMI SIF across fifteen biome-stratified regions, including forests, grasslands, agricultural areas, and xeric landscapes. Even in the absence of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and albedo corrections, simple univariate linear models show that the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and Chlorophyll Index Red Edge (CIRE) explain a large fraction of SIF variance (R2 = 0.80 and 0.77, respectively). The stability of these relationships across seasons highlights the key role of canopy structure and chlorophyll content in driving global SIF variability. Seasonal analyses further reveal that while EVI and CIRE perform robustly in most forests and agricultural systems, other moisture- and pigment-sensitive indices can provide better performance during dry seasons in water-limited ecosystems. Spatial residual analyses indicate minimal global bias, though systematic deviations occur in certain regions (e.g., boreal forests and parts of the tropics), consistent with known effects of canopy architecture and fluorescence escape probability. These strong correlations suggest that PACE vegetation indices capture key biophysical drivers of SIF and point to the potential for improved SIF prediction and downscaling in future studies, particularly when combined with additional variables such as PAR corrections, albedo, or escape probability factors. Given the availability of EVI from moderate-resolution sensors (e.g., Sentinel-2 and Landsat), such relationships also offer promising avenues for bridging coarse-resolution SIF to finer management-relevant scales.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1852249</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1852249</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Remote sensing-based detailed wetland classification: a review of advances from 2020 to 2025]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-30T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Review</category>
        <author>Ying He</author><author>Muzi Li</author><author>Xiaoyan Tang</author><author>Ping Ren</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Wetlands play an irreplaceable role in maintaining ecological balance and conserving biodiversity. However, driven by both natural and human factors, vast wetland areas worldwide are being rapidly converted into agricultural or urban land, leading to a sharp decline in their extent and a degradation of their quality. Against this backdrop, remote sensing technology, with its unique advantages in macro-level monitoring and multi-temporal dynamic capture, provides indispensable technical support for the precise identification, classification, and change detection of wetlands, making it an essential tool for wetland monitoring, restoration assessment, conservation planning, and SDG-related evaluation. This review examines recent advances in remote sensing for detailed wetland classification over the past 5 years. It elaborates on commonly used remote sensing data sources, local and international wetland classification standards, diverse classification methods, accuracy evaluation metrics, and prospects. This review provides a comprehensive reference to remote sensing-based wetland classification studies and applications.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1856867</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1856867</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Comparative analysis on spectral characteristics of PRISMA and EnMAP hyperspectral missions]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-24T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Valeria La Pegna</author><author>Sora Seo</author><author>Davide De Santis</author><author>Fabio Del Frate</author><author>Diego Loyola</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Given the similarities in their instrumental characteristics, a comparative analysis was conducted between hyperspectral missions of PRISMA, operated by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), and EnMAP, developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). This work investigates both the similarities and discrepancies between these two satellite optical data, providing an outline of the spectral regions where data from both sensors can be reliably interchanged. The analysis was performed by analyzing the full visible and near-infrared (VNIR) spectrum and by examining selected spectral ranges sensitive to key environmental parameters, such as nitrogen dioxide, chlorophyll and NDVI. A total of 11 PRISMA and EnMAP co-located hyperspectral image pairs acquired across different seasons over the Euro-Mediterranean region were analyzed, focusing on representative land cover classes (bare soil, vegetation, urban areas and waters). Preprocessing steps were applied to standardize the acquisition viewing geometries, and the top of atmosphere (TOA) level of products from the two sensors were used to avoid inconsistencies introduced by atmospheric correction schemes adopted by each operating agency. Overall, the quantitative and qualitative assessments confirm a strong correspondence between the PRISMA and EnMAP hyperspectral measurements across the VNIR spectrum, with SAM always below 0.1 rad. However, the statistical analysis reveals relatively low consistency between the two sensors for the vegetation sensitive spectral window (750–940 nm), where larger deviations are observed with STD of 0.067 and SAM of 0.097, while the NO2 spectral range (420–500 nm) shows lower SAM of 0.048 and STD of 0.045.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1931394</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1931394</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Editorial: Machine learning for advanced remote sensing: from theory to applications and societal impact]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-24T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Editorial</category>
        <author>Rui Li</author><author>Shaoqing Dai</author><author>Bin Jiang</author><author>Cong Zhang</author><author>Haoyang Yang</author><author>Wufan Zhao</author>
        <description></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1877406</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1877406</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Estimating forest aboveground carbon stock from remote sensing data with an enhanced XGBoost model]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-23T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Chenfei Shi</author><author>Cui Jia</author><author>Linghan Gao</author><author>Qi Liu</author><author>Haonan Wang</author><author>Mengyu Xu</author>
        <description><![CDATA[The accurate assessment of forest aboveground carbon (AGC) is crucial for improving the efficiency of forest resource management, mitigating climate change, and fostering sustainable development. However, the extensive distribution of forests, their complex ecosystem structures, insufficiently representative assessment data, and methodological inconsistencies generally lead to estimates with low accuracy and high uncertainty. To address these issues systematically, this study introduces a novel framework that integrates remote sensing features with field-measured plot data. This framework leverages an Optuna-optimized eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) model to achieve accurate estimation of forest AGC. A key contribution of this study is the application of Optuna to optimize the hyperparameters of the XGBoost model, which improves both its predictive performance and generalization ability. For feature selection, we employed a combination of the Pearson correlation coefficient and the Boruta algorithm, which identified ten core feature variables from the initial set. This process effectively improved the relevance and interpretability of the model inputs. The experimental results demonstrate that feature selection markedly improved model performance: R2 increased by 0.2, RMSE decreased by 2.33 Mg C/ha, and MAE was reduced by 6.21% compared to the model using the unselected feature set. The Optuna-optimized XGBoost model demonstrated excellent performance, achieving an R2 of 0.72, an improvement of 0.12 over the baseline XGBoost model, with an RMSE of 24.48 Mg C/ha and an MAE of 18.56%. These results indicate superior predictive accuracy and stability. In conclusion, the integrated framework developed in this study, which combines multi-source remote sensing data with machine learning, effectively enhances the estimation accuracy of forest AGC at a regional scale. This approach provides a reliable theoretical basis and a practical methodology for the dynamic monitoring and management of forest carbon sinks.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1861186</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1861186</link>
        <title><![CDATA[High-precision individual tree canopy segmentation from UAV remote sensing imagery based on the improved BKFE-UNet model]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-22T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Methods</category>
        <author>Qi Liu</author><author>Cui Jia</author><author>Linghan Gao</author><author>Haonan Wang</author><author>Chenfei Shi</author><author>Mengyu Xu</author><author>Kaiyu Jia</author><author>Siyu Ma</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Canopy segmentation is a crucial step in obtaining canopy parameters in forestry remote sensing, and it holds significant importance for research areas such as forest carbon sequestration. However, canopy segmentation based on UAV imagery still faces challenges including confusion between edges and background, as well as insufficient edge details. To address these issues, this paper proposes a semantic segmentation network based on U-Net which implements boundary and key feature enhancement named BKFE-UNet, which is built upon the U-Net model and integrates a differential boundary attention module (DBM) and a key feature enhancement module (KFEM). The DBM enhances canopy edge information through differential computation, alleviating problems such as adhesion between adjacent canopy edges and inadequate edge details. The KFEM introduces Ghost convolution; by stacking Ghost features, it simultaneously filters out redundant information and enhances the key semantic features of canopy objects, thereby reducing background interference. On the UAV tree canopy segmentation dataset, BKFE-UNet achieves an mPA of 92.62%, an mIoU of 86.50%, an Accuracy of 96.30%, and an F1-score of 0.90, representing improvements of 2.23%, 2.27%, 2.09%, and 0.02, respectively, over the baseline U-Net, demonstrating a significant improvement over the baseline U-Net model.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1825086</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1825086</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Global assessment of merged multi-sensor ocean-colour chlorophyll-a products]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-21T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Silvia Pardo</author><author>Gavin H. Tilstone</author><author>Giorgio Dall’Olmo</author><author>Thomas M. Jordan</author><author>Robert J. W. Brewin</author><author>Tania G. D. Casal</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Chlorophyll-a concentration (chl-a) is important to assess the health and state of ocean ecosystems. With the availability of global ocean-colour chl-a estimates that now span 25 years, there has been a concerted effort to produce merged data products from different satellite sensors to assess changes in chl-a over the global ocean for long periods of time. However, to date, the performance of these merged chl-a products has not been thoroughly assessed. To perform such an assessment, we assembled a large global in situ dataset of quasi-autonomous spectrophotometrically-derived chl-a that resulted in >13,000 satellite match- ups and then filtered them to produce the highest quality data. The suite of merged ocean-colour chl-a products assessed using the in situ chl-a included two Ocean Colour - Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) versions (OC-CCI v5 and OC-CCI v6), two GlobColour products and the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) GlobColour L3 and L4 and CMEMS-CCI products. The results confirm that spectrophotometrically-derived chl-a estimates can achieve considerably larger numbers of satellite match ups and lower root mean squared errors in validation than those obtained from discrete estimates of chl-a. Using these data, all of the satellite products (except the GlobColour L4 gap-filled one) exhibited similarly consistent results with the in situ chl-a data with a mean relative percentage difference of 30%. Residuals (differences between in situ and satellite product data) were not homogeneously distributed across chl-a ranges however, with mainly negative residuals at low and high chl-a and mainly positive residuals at intermediate chl-a. These results illustrate that absolute biases of the order of 20%–50% still affect these merged products in specific parts of the chl-a range.]]></description>
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        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1793996</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1793996</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Intra-event extreme rainfall characterization in the tropical Andes: a high-resolution weather radar approach]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-21T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Gabriela Urgilés</author><author>Rolando Célleri</author><author>Daniela Ballari</author><author>Jörg Bendix</author><author>Johanna Orellana-Alvear</author>
        <description><![CDATA[IntroductionHydrological hazards, such as floods and landslides are frequently driven by extreme rainfall events (ERE). Thus, understanding the spatio-temporal patterns and intra-event behavior of these events is important for identifying vulnerable regions, improving early warning systems, and enhancing water management.MethodsThis study aimed to analyze the spatio-temporal intra-event characteristics of ERE, using high-resolution (5min) weather radar data focusing on their internal structure and spatial distribution. The study was conducted in the headwaters of the Paute basin (2,200–4,400 m a.s.l.) in southern Ecuador. Based on three ERE classes, four intra-event rainfall features were analyzed: area, maximum rainfall, cohesion, and the locations of rainfall hotspots.ResultsThese features revealed different rainfall patterns for the three distinct rainfall classes. Class 1 is characterized by the highest rainfall peaks, concentrated between 12:00 and 19:00 (afternoon). Class 3 shows the lowest rainfall peaks. Class 2 shows the least cohesive rainfall core and a mixed behavior in features. Regarding the locations of rainfall hotspots, classes 1 and 2 show hotspots located at the catchment outlets and at the urban (City of Cuenca) areas of the sub-catchments (around 2,500 m a.s.l), while those in class 3 are found at headwaters (above 3,500 m a.s.l).DiscussionIdentifying these rainfall characteristics and hotspot location provides a better understanding of extreme rainfall behavior in the tropical Andes, which enhances knowledge of hydrological processes, and improves flood forecasting.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1827393</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1827393</link>
        <title><![CDATA[A multi-class, multi-temporal crop and Land cover mapping framework for Morocco using Sentinel-1/2 monthly composites and advanced machine learning ensembles]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-21T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Maryam Choukri</author><author>Yacine Bouroubi</author><author>Jamal-Eddine Ouzemou</author><author>Said Grich</author><author>Guy Armel Kamga Fotso</author><author>Saeid Ojaghi</author><author>Abdelghani Chehbouni</author><author>Ahmed Laamrani</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Timely and accurate crop-type mapping is fundamental for sustainable agricultural management and food security in semi-arid regions, where climate variability and fragmented landscapes present persistent challenges. This study develops and validates an operational, multi-temporal framework for classifying five key agricultural classes (i.e., soft wheat, durum wheat, barley, trees, and other crops) across diverse Moroccan agroecosystems. By integrating monthly Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar and Sentinel-2 optical time series spanning six growing seasons (2018–2025), we extracted 156 features comprising 13 spectral indices across 12 monthly composites. Ground truth data from the national Al Moutmir database, strategically balanced to address natural class imbalances, supported comprehensive training and validation of six machine learning models (i.e., Random Forest, Extra Trees, XGBoost, LightGBM, Voting Ensemble, and Stacking Ensemble). Our findings showed that the LightGBM and Stacking Ensemble achieved the highest performance with 88.04% overall accuracy, followed closely by XGBoost (87.93%). Feature importance analysis revealed that monthly temporal resolution significantly outperformed traditional phenological-stage approaches, with March and April indices (particularly Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and Normalized Difference Red Edge) contributing most to class discrimination. Notably, early-season radar features (Vertical-Vertical polarization in September) provided valuable complementary information when optical data were limited. The framework demonstrated robust generalization through 10-fold cross-validation while explicitly quantifying a 12.56% overfitting gap (train-CV difference), acknowledging a non-negligible overfitting risk. Offering transparent performance assessment. Error analysis identified persistent confusion between spectrally similar cereals, particularly durum and soft wheat, highlighting priority areas for future sensor integration. This scalable, cloud-based pipeline directly supports Morocco’s Green Generation strategy by providing a reproducible, high-accuracy solution for annual crop inventories, with transferable applications across similar Mediterranean and semi-arid agricultural systems.]]></description>
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        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1890112</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1890112</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Evaluating statistical downscaling methods for future temperature and precipitation projections in the Qilian mountains]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-17T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Guohua Liu</author><author>Chanchan Gao</author><author>Zhangwen Liu</author><author>Huibang Han</author><author>Chuntan Han</author><author>Jiaze Li</author><author>Rensheng Chen</author>
        <description><![CDATA[The Qilian Mountains, a crucial ecological security barrier and water conservation region in northwestern China, are highly sensitive to climate change. Reliable climate projections are essential for regional environmental management, yet the performance of statistical downscaling methods in this complex mountainous region remains inadequately evaluated. This study evaluates four statistical downscaling methods—Delta Change Method (DCM), Quantile Mapping (QM), Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), and Random Forest (RF)—using station-based observations (1951–2025) and outputs from 34 CMIP6 climate models. Validation results indicate that RF achieved the highest R2 and the lowest RMSE for both temperature and precipitation, with superior stability across models, scenarios, and stations. Based on RF downscaling, future climate projections under SSP1–2.6, SSP2–4.5, SSP3–7.0, and SSP5–8.5 indicate a persistent warming and moderate wetting trend throughout the 21st century. Temperature is projected to increase at rates of 0.03 °C–0.31 °C/decade, while precipitation is projected to increase by approximately 3.2%–8.1% by the end of the century, although inter-model uncertainty remains substantial. Future climate change also exhibits pronounced seasonal and spatial heterogeneity, characterized by winter-dominated warming, reduced summer precipitation but increased autumn–winter precipitation, and strong elevation-dependent responses concentrated in high-elevation areas. The 0 °C isotherm is projected to rise by approximately 100–400 m by the late 21st century. These findings highlight the applicability of RF downscaling for station-scale climate projections in the Qilian Mountains and provide scientific support for regional climate adaptation, water resource management, and ecosystem conservation.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1882437</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1882437</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Neutrosophic soft-computing ensemble for high-accuracy satellite image scene classification]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-08T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Ezhilmaran Devarasan</author><author>Maxime Mahieu Josse</author><author>Sm Arun</author><author>V. Vishal</author><author>Bapathu Koushika</author><author>Abhyuday Singh</author><author>Jenisha Rachel</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Satellite image scene classification is a fundamental task in remote sensing. It underpins land-use monitoring, urban planning, disaster response, and environmental management. Despite substantial progress through deep learning, complex aerial scenes remain challenging owing to high inter-class visual similarity, intra-class spatial variance, and inherent prediction uncertainty across heterogeneous model architectures. This paper proposes a novel triple-branch ensemble framework that combines three architecturally complementary deep learning backbones-ConvNeXt-Small, HRNet-W18, and Swin Transformer (Small) - to jointly exploit local texture hierarchies, high-resolution spatial representations, and global self-attention context. To advance beyond conventional probability averaging, three uncertainty-aware soft-computing fusion strategies are developed and compared: Normal Fuzzy logic, Intuitionistic Fuzzy logic, and Neutrosophic logic. The proposed Neutrosophic fusion decomposes each branch output into Truth, Indeterminacy, and Falsity components, explicitly down-weighting predictions characterised by high inter-branch disagreement. Experiments are conducted on the UC Merced Land Use Dataset (21 classes, 2,100 images) using a stratified 80/20 split with a comprehensive eight-stage preprocessing pipeline and ImageNet transfer learning. The proposed Neutrosophic Ensemble achieves 99.29% accuracy and the highest precision of 99.31%, outperforming all individual backbones and simpler ensemble baselines. These results suggest that architectural complementarity combined with neutrosophic uncertainty modelling is a promising approach for satellite image scene classification on this benchmark, though validation on larger and more diverse datasets remains an important next step.]]></description>
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        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1813566</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2026.1813566</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Integration of radiative transfer–machine learning for physiological mapping of leaf chlorophyll and anthocyanin in cotton]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-08T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Prachi Singh</author><author>Mohan K. Bista</author><author>Chamika A. Silva</author><author>Nuwan K. Wijewardane</author><author>John P. Brooks</author><author>Prakash Kumar Jha</author><author>Raju Bheemanahalli</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Accurate, non-invasive measurements of leaf biophysical parameters are crucial for assessing crop health and advancing precision agriculture. This study combined an uncrewed aerial system (UAS) drone with radiative transfer modeling and machine learning techniques to estimate two key cotton traits: Leaf Chlorophyll Content (LCC) and Anthocyanin (Anth). Ground-based leaf hyperspectral data collected with a PSR + Spectroradiometer and handheld multi-pigment to match the drone data and support validation. The PROSPECT-D model for leaf optical properties was utilized within the Automated Radiative Transfer Models Operator (ARTMO) framework to conduct forward simulations. Concurrently, inverse modeling was executed using the Machine Learning Regression Algorithms (MLRA) toolbox. During the calibration phase (70% of the dataset) and the validation phase (30% of the dataset), six machine learning algorithms were assessed under various spectral and parameter noise conditions. Among these, Gaussian kernel regression demonstrated the better relative performance, achieving correlation coefficients (r) of 0.82 and 0.78 for LCC and Anth, respectively. The parameter mapping derived from UAS data revealed spatial variability in LCC (0.2–0.6) and in Anth (0.01–0.09) across the study field. Validation results showed strong correlations with ground-truth data, with r values of 0.74 and 0.71 for LCC and Anth, respectively. These findings highlight the potential to integrate UAS data, radiative transfer models, and machine learning to non-invasively estimate crop biophysical parameters and spatially monitor crop physiological variability, thereby facilitating effective precision agriculture practices.]]></description>
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