Announcements

We are pleased to share the following 10 Editor's Choice Articles published in Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907). These papers were selected by our Editors-in-Chief from the most notable papers published in Volume 14, Issues 1‒3. All these papers are of particular interest or importance to readers and have all been well received by researchers.

1. “A Review of Research on Forest Ecosystem Quality Assessment and Prediction Methods”
by Ke Guo, Bing Wang and Xiang Niu
Forests 2023, 14(2), 317; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14020317
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/14/2/317

2. “A Small-Target Forest Fire Smoke Detection Model Based on Deformable Transformer for End-to-End Object Detection”
by Jingwen Huang, Jiashun Zhou, Huizhou Yang, Yunfei Liu and Han Liu
Forests 2023, 14(1), 162; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14010162
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/14/1/162

3. “Effects of Wild Forest Fires on Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of a Boreal Conifer, White Spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss): Implications for Genetic Resource Management and Adaptive Potential under Climate Change”
by Om P. Rajora, Manphool S. Fageria and Michael Fitzsimmons
Forests 2023, 14(1), 157; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14010157
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/14/1/157

4. “Adhesive- and Metal-Free Assembly Techniques for Prefabricated Multi-Layer Engineered Wood Products: A Review on Wooden Connectors”
by Lei Han, Andreja Kutnar, Jakub Sandak, Iztok Šušteršič and Dick Sandberg
Forests 2023, 14(2), 311; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14020311
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/14/2/311

5. “Distinct Responses of European Beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) to Drought Intensity and Length—A Review of the Impacts of the 2003 and 2018–2019 Drought Events in Central Europe”
by Shah Rukh, Tanja G. M. Sanders, Inken Krüger, Tobias Schad and Andreas Bolte
Forests 2023, 14(2), 248; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14020248
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/14/2/248

6. “Modelling Climatically Suitable Areas for Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla King) and Their Shifts across Neotropics: The Role of Protected Areas”
by Robinson J. Herrera-Feijoo, Bolier Torres, Rolando López-Tobar, Cristhian Tipán-Torres, Theofilos Toulkeridis, Marco Heredia-R and Rubén G. Mateo
Forests 2023, 14(2), 385; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14020385
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/14/2/385

7. “Modeling Climate Change Effects on the Distribution of Oak Forests with Machine Learning”
by Hengameh Mirhashemi, Mehdi Heydari, Omid Karami, Kourosh Ahmadi and Amir Mosavi
Forests 2023, 14(3), 469; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14030469
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/14/3/469

8. “Carbon Sequestration Potential of Commercial Agroforestry Systems in Indo-Gangetic Plains of India: Poplar and Eucalyptus-Based Agroforestry Systems”
by Sangram Bhanudas Chavan, Ravinder Singh Dhillon, Chhavi Sirohi, Appanderanda Ramani Uthappa, Dinesh Jinger, Hanuman Singh Jatav, Akash Ravindra Chichaghare, Vijaysinha Kakade, Venkatesh Paramesh, Sushil Kumari et al.
Forests 2023, 14(3), 559; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14030559
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/14/3/559

9. “Biocultural Importance of the Chiuri Tree [Diploknema butyracea (Roxb.) H. J. Lam] for the Chepang Communities of Central Nepal”
by Yadav Uprety and Hugo Asselin
Forests 2023, 14(3), 479; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14030479
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/14/3/479

10. “The Differences in Water Repellency in Root Mat (Biomat) and Soil Horizons of Thinned and Non-thinned Chamaecyparis obtusa (Siebold et Zucc.) Endl. Plantations”
by Moein Farahnak, Takanori Sato, Yuya Otani, Koichiro Kuraji and Toko Suzaki
Forests 2023, 14(2), 210; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14020210
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/14/2/210

We would like to thank all the research groups behind these exceptional papers for their contributions to Forests. We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or your network.

If you want to learn more about the contributions published in Editor’s Choice, please read here.

The International Day for Biological Diversity will be celebrated on 22 May 2023, under the theme “From Agreement to Action: Build Back Biodiversity”, which aims to raise awareness and understanding of biodiversity issues. Biodiversity refers to the diversity of all life forms on Earth, including genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity. Biological diversity resources are the pillars upon which we build civilizations; however, the loss of biodiversity threatens everything, including our health. We hope that the established MDPI journals on life sciences and biology, including Biology, Diversity, Fishes, Birds, Insects, Water, Forests, Grasses, Life, Seeds, Agriculture, and Agronomy, will provide suitable communication platforms. The aim is to strengthen scientific cooperation in response to the International Day for Biological Diversity and to embrace the potential to promote sustainable development.

“Avifaunal Diversity and Abundance in the Proposed Sarasalai Mangrove Reserve, Jaffna, Sri Lanka”
by Nitharsan Aloysius, Shashi Madhushanka and Chathuri Chandrika
Birds 2023, 4(1), 103-116; https://doi.org/10.3390/birds4010009

“Perils of Underestimating Species Diversity: Revisiting Systematics of Psammocambeva Catfishes (Siluriformes: Trichomycteridae) from the Rio Paraíba do Sul Basin, South-Eastern Brazil”
by Wilson J. E. M. Costa, José Leonardo Mattos, Paulo J. Vilardo, Pedro F. Amorim and Axel M. Katz
Taxonomy 2022, 2(4), 491-523; https://doi.org/10.3390/taxonomy2040032

“Environmental DNA Metabarcoding: A Novel Contrivance for Documenting Terrestrial Biodiversity”
by Shahnawaz Hassan, Sabreena, Peter Poczai, Bashir Ah Ganai, Waleed Hassan Almalki, Abdul Gafur and R. Z. Sayyed
Biology 2022, 11(9), 1297; https://doi.org/10.3390/biology11091297

“Dam Construction Impacts Fish Biodiversity in a Subtropical River Network, China”
by Xiongjun Liu, Julian D. Olden, Ruiwen Wu, Shan Ouyang and Xiaoping Wu
Diversity 2022, 14(6), 476; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14060476

“Human Communities in Protected Natural Areas and Biodiversity Conservation”
by Elizabeth Olmos-Martínez, Heidi Leticia Romero-Schmidt, María del Carmen Blázquez, Camilo Arias-González and Alfredo Ortega-Rubio
Diversity 2022, 14(6), 441; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14060441

“Effects of Habitat Fragmentation on the Population Structure and Genetic Diversity of Erythroneurini in the Typical Karst Rocky Ecosystem, Southwest China”
by Chen Xiaoxiao, Jia Jiang, Ni Zhang, Xiao Yang, Yongkuan Chi and Yuehua Song
Insects 2022, 13(6), 499; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects13060499

“Application of Ecological Restoration Technologies for the Improvement of Biodiversity and Ecosystem in the River”
by Li Pushuang, Dan Li, Xiaoqing Sun, Zhaosheng Chu, Ting Xia and Binghui Zheng
Water 2022, 14(9), 1402; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14091402

“Conservation-Status Gaps for Marine Top-Fished Commercial Species”
by Imanol Miqueleiz, Rafael Miranda, Arturo Hugo Ariño and Elena Ojea
Fishes 2022, 7(1), 2; https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes7010002

International Day for Biological Diversity

Date and time: 22 May 2023, 9–11 a.m. (CEST)

This is a free webinar. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on how to join the webinar.

We are pleased to share the most cited Special Issues published by Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907). You are welcome to browse the Issues and the articles published in them that are of interest to you. In addition, you can find more highly cited and viewed Special Issues and articles published in Forests here.

1. "Electronics, Close-Range Sensors and Artificial Intelligence in Forestry"
   Edited by Stelian Alexandru Borz, Andrea R. Proto, Robert Keefe and Mihai Nita
   Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/special_issues/forest_engineering
   Number of papers: 13 | Average citations: 18.85

2. "Wood Modification: Physical Properties and Biological Efficacy"
   Edited by Samuel L. Zelinka
   Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/special_issues/Wood_Modification_Physical_Properties_Biological_Efficacy
   Number of papers: 12 | Average citations: 10.33

3. "Decision Support System Development of Wildland Fire"
   Edited by David E. Calkin and Matthew P. Thompson
   Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/special_issues/decision_fire
   Number of papers: 11 | Average citations: 7.45

4. "Historical Wood: Structure, Properties and Conservation"
   Edited by Magdalena Broda and Callum A. S. Hill
   Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/special_issues/historical_wood
   Number of papers: 15 | Average citations: 6.53

5. "Evaluation and Protection of Wood and Wood Products"
   Edited by Lina Nunes, Dennis Jones and Bruno Esteves
   Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/special_issues/Protection_Wood
   Number of papers: 11 | Average citations: 6

6. "Climate Change and Air Pollution Effects on Forest Ecosystems"
   Edited by Ovidiu Badea, Alessandra De Marco, Pierre Sicard and Mihai A. Tanase
   Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/special_issues/climate_pollution_ecosystem
   Number of papers: 11 | Average citations: 6

7. "Wood Production and Promotion"
   Edited by Michele Brunetti, Michela Nocetti and Alexander Petutschnigg
   Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/special_issues/wood_production
   Number of papers: 15 | Average citations: 5.33

8. "Simulation Models of the Dynamics of Forest Ecosystems"
   Edited by Guy R. LaRocque, Weifeng Wang, Herman H. Shugart and Vladimir Shanin
   Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/special_issues/Forest_Simulation_Models
   Number of papers: 17 | Average citations: 4.82

9. "Mangrove Wetland Restoration and Rehabilitation"
   Edited by Victor H. Rivera-Monroy, Xosé Lois Otero-Pérez, Jorge Lopez-Portillo and Tiago Osorio Ferreira
   Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/special_issues/Mangrove_Restoration
   Number of papers: 15 | Average citations: 4.8

10. "Forest Vegetation Monitoring through Remote Sensing Technologies"
    Edited by Steven L. Petersen
    Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/special_issues/vegetation_monitoring
    Number of papers: 14 | Average citations: 4.71

MDPI will be attending the 2023 Science and Technology Annual Meeting of Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences, which will be held from 22 to 23 April 2023, in Nanchang, China. The theme of the annual meeting is “Develop green and low-carbon, build a beautiful China”.

The annual meeting has arranged for an opening ceremony and specially invited keynote speeches, subsession seminars, high-end forums, special sessions for young scientists, poster exchanges, environmental protection science and technology achievement exhibitions, special events, etc. A total of 1800 delegates are expected to attend. Four academicians and other well-known experts are expected to deliver keynote speeches on climate change, the prevention and control of atmospheric, water, and soil environmental pollution, and environmental management science as well as technology. The invited keynote speeches touch on fields such as achievements in transformation.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Sustainability;
• Toxics;
• Energies;
• Climate;
• Land;
• Minerals;
• Resources;
• Forests;
• Remote Sensing;
• Earth;
• Clean Technologies.
  

MDPI will be attending the 8th International Wildland Fire Conference (IWFC), which will take place in Porto, Portugal, from 16 to 19 May 2023. The first IWFC meeting was held in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1989. Since then, a series of conferences have been initiated to promote the exchange of expertise and international cooperation in wildland fire management. Previous conferences have helped organizations and professionals from over 70 countries develop common firefighting vocabulary, theory, training manuals, techniques, and operational standards. The 8th IWFC aims to create a space for researchers to present their latest work in the field of wildland fire. The conference welcomes institutional or professional case studies, scientific work, and papers detailing operational successes or failures in dealing with complexity and uncertainty when governing or managing wildfire risk.

MDPI invites researchers from different backgrounds to attend this conference to share their latest views and research with us.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Forests;
• Land;
• Safety;
• Fire;
• Fuels.

If you plan on attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth and start a conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have.

We hope you will join us in celebrating and further protecting the planet’s forests this International Day of Forests, which takes place on the 21st of March. The theme for the 2023 International Day of Forests is "Forests and Health”. Forests give so much to our health, they purify the water, clean the air, capture carbon to fight climate change, provide food and life-saving medicines, and improve our well-being. It is up to us to safeguard these precious natural resources. At MDPI, our open access journals are primarily available online, reducing the company’s impact on deforestation and helping to protect the world’s forests.

Location: Nalati Grassland, Xinjiang, China Photo by Carolyn Chen, Sydney University	Location: Jiangshan, Zhejiang, China Photo by Pengcheng Ye, Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science	Location: Qinling, Shanxi, China Photo by Yuan Li, Shaanxi Normal University

To access more content about Nature Photography Campaign and other related series activities, please click here.

• “Facilitating Prescribed Fire in Northern California through Indigenous Governance and Interagency Partnerships”
  Fire 2021, 4, 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/fire4030037
• “Capitalization and Capital Return in Boreal Carbon Forestry”
  Earth 2022, 3, 204-227; https://doi.org/10.3390/earth3010014
• “A Knowledge Review on Integrated Landscape Approaches”
  Forests 2022, 13, 312; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13020312
• “National Implementation of the Forest Europe Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management”
  Forests 2022, 13, 191; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13020191
• “Carbon Footprint and Feedstock Quality of a Real Biomass Power Plant Fed with Forestry and Agricultural Residues”
  Resources 2022, 11, 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/resources11020007
• “The Necrobiome of Deadwood: The Life after Death”
  Ecologies 2023, 4, 20-38; https://doi.org/10.3390/ecologies4010003

As a leading open access publisher, MDPI provides scholars with a high-quality and rich academic exchange platform by continuously expanding into new and exciting research areas.

In December 2022, MDPI launched five new journals, covering multiple subjects such as life sciences, biology, medicine and pharmacology, social sciences and humanities. These new journals are being edited by established scholars across the world.

If you are interested in creating more open access journals with us to publish cutting-edge research, please send your journal proposal application to newjournal-committee@mdpi.com.

MDPI is pleased to announce that we now display the co-authors’ email addresses in addition to the corresponding author’s email address on the webpage of published papers, protected by Captcha. For more information about this change, please visit the journal’s instructions for authors page. 

We believe this change will facilitate academic discussions and advance our cause of open science and research. The corresponding authors are responsible for communicating with their co-authors and indicating in our system (https://susy.mdpi.com/) if co-authors would prefer for their email addresses not to be displayed.

We are pleased to share the following 10 Editor's Choice Articles published in Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907). Our Editors-in-Chief selected these papers from the most notable papers published in Volume 13, Issues 10‒12. They are all of particular interest or importance to readers and are all well received by researchers.

1. “Water in Wood: A Review of Current Understanding and Knowledge Gaps”
by Emil Engelund Thybring, Maria Fredriksson, Samuel L. Zelinka and Samuel V. Glass
Forests 2022, 13(12), 2051; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13122051
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/12/2051

2. “Forest Management, Barred Owls, and Wildfire in Northern Spotted Owl Territories”
by Monica L. Bond, Tonja Y. Chi, Curtis M. Bradley and Dominick A. DellaSala
Forests 2022, 13(10), 1730; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13101730
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/10/1730

3. “Contribution of Dry Forests and Forest Products to Climate Change Adaptation in Tigray Region, Ethiopia”
by Musse Tesfaye, Ashenafi Manaye, Berihu Tesfamariam, Zenebe Mekonnen, Shibire Bekele Eshetu, Katharina Löhr and Stefan Sieber
Forests 2022, 13(12), 2026; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13122026
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/12/2026

4. “The Macroeconomic Implications of the Transition of the Forestry Industry towards Bioeconomy”
by Alin Emanuel Artene, Lucian-Ionel Cioca, Aura Emanuela Domil, Larisa Ivascu, Valentin Burca and Oana Bogdan
Forests 2022, 13(11), 1961; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13111961
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/11/1961

5. “The Role of Provenance for the Projected Growth of Juvenile European Beech under Climate Change”
by Peter Petrík, Rüdiger Grote, Dušan Gömöry, Daniel Kurjak, Anja Petek-Petrik, Laurent J. Lamarque, Alena Sliacka Konôpková, Mohammad Mukarram, Harish Debta and Peter Fleischer Jr.
Forests 2023, 14(1), 26; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14010026
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/14/1/26

6. “Water Retention Characteristics of Mineral Forest Soils in Finland: Impacts for Modeling Soil Moisture”
by Samuli Launiainen, Antti-Jussi Kieloaho, Antti-Jussi Lindroos, Aura Salmivaara, Hannu Ilvesniemi and Juha Heiskanen
Forests 2022, 13(11), 1797; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13111797
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/11/1797

7. “Critical Aspects of People’s Participation in Community-Based Forest Management from the Case of Van Panchayat in Indian Himalaya”
by Kazuyo Nagahama, Satoshi Tachibana and Randeep Rakwal
Forests 2022, 13(10), 1667; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13101667
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/10/1667

8. “A Dynamical Model Based on the Chapman–Richards Growth Equation for Fitting Growth Curves for Four Pine Species in Northern Mexico”
by Joao Marcelo Brazao Protazio, Marcos Almeida Souza, Jose Ciro Hernández-Díaz, Jonathan G. Escobar-Flores, Carlos Antonio López-Sánchez, Artemio Carrillo-Parra and Christian Wehenkel
Forests 2022, 13(11), 1866; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13111866
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/11/1866

9. “Assessing Structural Complexity of Individual Scots Pine Trees by Comparing Terrestrial Laser Scanning and Photogrammetric Point Clouds”
by Paolo Baldi and Nicola La Porta
Forests 2022, 13(12), 2016; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13122016
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/12/2016

10. “Linking Bacterial Rhizosphere Communities of Two Pioneer Species, Brachystegia boehmii and B. spiciformis, to the Ecological Processes of Miombo Woodlands”
by Camilo B. S. António, Chinedu Obieze, João Jacinto, Ivete S. A. Maquia, Tara Massad, José C. Ramalho, Natasha S. Ribeiro, Cristina Máguas, Isabel Marques and Ana I. Ribeiro-Barros
Forests 2022, 13(11), 1840; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13111840
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/11/1840

We thank all the research groups behind these exceptional papers for their contributions to Forests. You are welcome to circulate this announcement among your colleagues or through your network.

If you want to learn more about the contributions published in Editor’s Choice Articles, please click here.

On 9 February 2023, Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics, added the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science platform, streamlining the research process by allowing researchers to locate and link to preprints alongside other trusted content in the database.

The Preprint Citation Index will act as a bridge to connect cutting-edge preprints with peer-reviewed journal articles published within the Web of Science Core Collection. Alerts can be easily set to monitor new research across several repositories and authors will also be able to include preprints on their Web of Science Research Profile to more accurately display their various research outputs.

As of its launch, the Preprint Citation Index will provide nearly two million preprints from various repositories, including MDPI’s own Preprints.org.

MDPI's Preprints Platform – Preprints.org

To advance Open Science and the fast dissemination of research, MDPI offers researchers a free multidisciplinary preprint platform. Preprints.org accepts submissions from all research areas and offers authors high visibility, permanent archiving, article-level Metrics and immediately citable content by assigning a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all preprints.

During submission to any MDPI journal, authors have the option to share their research as a preprint. After an initial screening, the manuscript is available online in 48 hours or less. Once online, preprints can be downloaded, shared, commented on, and cited, providing authors maximum visibility.

We invite you to join the ranks of the over 100k researchers using Preprints.org and share your research.

For more information, please visit Preprints.org.

We are delighted to share with you 10 reprints of Special Issues published in 2021–2022 in Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907). They were selected by the Forests Editorial Office, each with 10 or more articles published. You can read more reprints of the Special Issue published by Forests here. If you are interested in editing a Special Issue, you are welcome to check out our new initiative—the Special Issue Mentor Program.

The articles below have been selected as 2022 Issue Cover papers by the Editorial Office of Forests (ISSN: ISSN 1999-4907). These articles came from multiple fields within the scope of Forests, including forest fires, forest ecology and management, forest health, forest ecophysiology and biology, urban forestry, forest products, and forest modeling. We hope they can provide insights and references for scholars in these fields.

We are pleased to share the following 10 Editor’s Choice Articles published in Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907). The Editor’s Choice Articles were selected from the most notable publications in Volume 13, Issues 7‒9 by our Editors-in-Chief. All these papers are of particular interest or importance to readers and are all well received by researchers.

1. “Wood Preservation Practices and Future Outlook: Perspectives of Experts from Finland”
by Jami Järvinen, Hüseyin Emre Ilgın and Markku Karjalainen
Forests 2022, 13(7), 1044; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13071044
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/7/1044

2. “A Small Target Forest Fire Detection Model Based on YOLOv5 Improvement”
by Zhenyang Xue, Haifeng Lin and Fang Wang
Forests 2022, 13(8), 1332; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13081332
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/8/1332

3. “Psychological Well-Being and Nature Relatedness”
by Olga Grabowska-Chenczke, Sandra Wajchman-Świtalska and Marcin Woźniak
Forests 2022, 13(7), 1048; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13071048
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/7/1048

4. “Twelve Years into Genomic Selection in Forest Trees: Climbing the Slope of Enlightenment of Marker Assisted Tree Breeding”
by Dario Grattapaglia
Forests 2022, 13(10), 1554; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13101554
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/10/1554

5. “Culturable Endophytic Fungi in Fraxinus excelsior and Their Interactions with Hymenoscyphus fraxineus”
by Marek Barta, Katarína Pastirčáková, Radovan Ostrovský, Marek Kobza and Miriam Kádasi Horáková
Forests 2022, 13(7), 1098; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13071098
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/7/1098

6. “A National Map of Snag Hazard to Reduce Risk to Wildland Fire Responders”
by Karin L. Riley, Christopher D. O’Connor, Christopher J. Dunn, Jessica R. Haas, Richard D. Stratton and Benjamin Gannon
Forests 2022, 13(8), 1160; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13081160
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/8/1160

7. “Effect of Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) Rooting on Soil Characteristics in a Deciduous Forest Affected by Sedimentation”
by Natalia Pitta-Osses, Csaba Centeri, Ádám Fehér and Krisztián Katona
Forests 2022, 13(8), 1234; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13081234
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/8/1234

8. “Towards Continuous Stem Water Content and Sap Flux Density Monitoring: IoT-Based Solution for Detecting Changes in Stem Water Dynamics”
by Shahla Asgharinia, Martin Leberecht, Luca Belelli Marchesini, Nicolas Friess, Damiano Gianelle, Thomas Nauss, Lars Opgenoorth, Jim Yates and Riccardo Valentini
Forests 2022, 13(7), 1040; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13071040
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/7/1040

9. “Assessing Structural Complexity of Individual Scots Pine Trees by Comparing Terrestrial Laser Scanning and Photogrammetric Point Clouds”
by Noora Tienaho, Tuomas Yrttimaa, Ville Kankare, Mikko Vastaranta, Ville Luoma, Eija Honkavaara, Niko Koivumäki, Saija Huuskonen, Jari Hynynen, Markus Holopainen et al.
Forests 2022, 13(8), 1305; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13081305
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/8/1305

10. “Recreational Visit to Suburban Forests during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Taiwan”
by Yung-Chih Chen, Frank C. Tsai, Ming-Jer Tsai and Wan-Yu Liu
Forests 2022, 13(8), 1181; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13081181
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/8/1181
We would like to thank all the research groups behind these exceptional papers for their contributions to Forests. We would greatly appreciate it if you would circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.
If you want to learn more about the contributions published in Editor’s Choice Articles, please click here.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the MDPI Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the Issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars who may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mailing invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Performing editorial control of the Special Issue and quality control of the publications, both of which must be carried out in a timely manner;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
• Making and submitting decisions regarding submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Editorial Office of a journal you choose, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. The full list of MDPI journals is as follows: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, we will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

MDPI has just become the first open access (OA) publisher to reach the milestone of one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon! We are proud to share this special moment with the global scientific community.

This landmark has been reached thanks to the immeasurable support of more than 600,000 expert reviewers, 66,000 editorial board members and 6700 hard-working colleagues across MDPI’s global offices.

Within more than 25 years of publishing, our journals received 2.1 million manuscripts and generated 4.6 million peer review reports to get to one million papers published.

Reaching the milestone of one million articles published reinforces our mission to remove any existing barriers and to make scientific research accessible to all. Since its inception, MDPI’s goal has been to create reliable processes to make science open. This is a path towards facilitating the dissemination of novel insights in scientific communities.

Regular feedback from authors and reviewers shows that our service is greatly appreciated and needed. At the same time, the feedback helps us identify areas for further improvement.

As it stands, a significant share of published research findings remain closed access. More than half of the content published with the most well-known legacy publishers stays behind a paywall, and that is not including articles published in hybrid OA journals, or made available months or years after publication.

A new policy announced by the US administration in August 2022 requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. While the new policy does not mandate articles be published under an open access license, it is aligned with the open access movement in removing all barriers to research. Similarly, some of the most advanced research institutions in the world intend to have all funded research articles published in open access by 2025.

MDPI is proud to be the leading agent of the transition to open access.

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

We are pleased to announce that the website of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation has been revamped! For the past couple of months, our UX UI team and front-end developers have been working hard to launch the website in time for the opening of the Sustainability Awards nominations.

The website is not the only thing that has had a remodeling. Indeed, the format of the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award (ESLA) has been updated. ESLA is now a competition open to individual researchers or start-ups founded by researchers under the age of 35. Nominee applications will go through 2 rounds of selection until the final 3 are decided. The finalists will then be invited to give pitch presentations during the Award Ceremony to win either first place (10,000 USD) or runner-up (2 x 5000 USD).

The World Sustainability Award, on the other hand, remains the same: a total prize money of 100,000 USD is up for grabs by senior individual researchers or groups of researchers from the international research community.

Nominations for both the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader award are now open! Check out our new website for more information on how to nominate.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—The Forests Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the Guest Editor (GE) mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars that may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mail the invitations on behalf of GEs;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Performing editorial control of the Special issue and quality control of the publications in a timely manner; 
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
• Making and submitting decisions for the submissions under the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:

After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Forests Editorial Office (forests@mdpi.com), and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907) will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

We are pleased to share the 10 most cited papers published in Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907) in 2021. You are welcome to visit more of the most cited & viewed articles.

1. “Combination of Feature Selection and CatBoost for Prediction: The First Application to the Estimation of Aboveground Biomass”
by Mi Luo, Yifu Wang, Yunhong Xie, Lai Zhou, Jingjing Qiao, Siyu Qiu and Yujun Sun
Forests 2021, 12(2), 216; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12020216
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/2/216

2. “Thermal Conductivity of Poplar Wood Veneer Impregnated with Graphene/Polyvinyl Alcohol”
by Shuang-Shuang Wu, Xin Tao and Wei Xu
Forests 2021, 12(6), 777; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12060777
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/6/777

3. “Economic Efficiency of Forest Enterprises—Empirical Study Based on Data Envelopment Analysis”
by Nikolay Neykov, Stanislava Krišťáková, Iveta Hajdúchová, Mariana Sedliačiková, Petar Antov and Blanka Giertliová
Forests 2021, 12(4), 462; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12040462
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/4/462

4. “Modelling the Material Resistance of Wood—Part 3: Relative Resistance in above- and in-Ground Situations—Results of a Global Survey”
by Christian Brischke, Gry Alfredsen, Miha Humar, Elena Conti, Laurie Cookson, Lukas Emmerich, Per Otto Flæte, Stefania Fortino, Lesley Francis, Ulrich Hundhausen et al.
Forests 2021, 12(5), 590; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12050590
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/5/590

5. “Similarities and Differences among Soil Fungal Assemblages in Managed Forests and Formerly Managed Forest Reserves”
by Marta Brygida Kujawska, Maria Rudawska, Robin Wilgan and Tomasz Leski
Forests 2021, 12(3), 353; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12030353
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/3/353

6. “Emerald Ash Borer Approaches the Borders of the European Union and Kazakhstan and Is Confirmed to Infest European Ash”
by Mark G. Volkovitsh, Andrzej O. Bieńkowski and Marina J. Orlova-Bienkowskaja
Forests 2021, 12(6), 691; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12060691
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/6/691

7. “Assessing Biomass Removal and Woody Debris in Whole-Tree Harvesting System: Are the Recommended Levels of Residues Ensured?”
by Abdelwahab Bessaad, Isabelle Bilger and Nathalie Korboulewsky
Forests 2021, 12(6), 807; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12060807
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/6/807

8. “The Role of Remote Sensing for the Assessment and Monitoring of Forest Health: A Systematic Evidence Synthesis”
by Pablo Torres, Marina Rodes-Blanco, Alba Viana-Soto, Hector Nieto and Mariano García
Forests 2021, 12(8), 1134; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12081134
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/8/1134

9. “Comparison of Selected Terramechanical Test Procedures and Cartographic Indices to Predict Rutting Caused by Machine Traffic during a Cut-to-Length Thinning Operation”
by Marian Schönauer, Stephan Hoffmann, Joachim Maack, Martin Jansen and Dirk Jaeger
Forests 2021, 12(2), 113; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12020113
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/2/113

10. “A Qualitative Study on the US Forest Service’s Risk Management Assistance Efforts to Improve Wildfire Decision-Making”
by Courtney A. Schultz, Lauren F. Miller, Sarah Michelle Greiner and Chad Kooistra
Forests 2021, 12(3), 344; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12030344
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/3/344

Stanford University has recently published an update of the list of the top 2% most widely cited scientists—the World’s Top 2% Scientists (https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktzyw). 

The timeframe of the statistical data of this list is from 1960 to 2022, and it is divided into two lists: "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" and "2022 Annual Scientific Influence Ranking". The "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" includes a comprehensive influence performance of scientists during their careers, and the "2022 Annual Influence Ranking" highlights the academic influence of scientists in the previous year. This ranking, considered the most prestigious worldwide, is based on the bibliometric information contained in the Scopus database and includes more than 200,000 researchers from the more than 10 million scientists considered to be active worldwide, with 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields taken into account.

We are pleased to share that 83 Editorial Board Members from MDPI’s journal Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907) were featured in Stanford University World’s Top 2% Scientists list in 2022.

The latest Stanford rankings reflect the significant influence and research excellence of the scientists, who are committed to furthering their knowledge for the benefit of the world.

We would like to congratulate our Editorial Board Members on their excellent achievement and thank them for their immense contribution to the scientific progression and development of Forests.

Name: Dr. Wade T. Tinkham

Affiliation: Rocky Mountain Research Station, Forest Service, United State Department of Agriculture, CO, USA

Dr. Wade T. Tinkham is a Research Forester who utilizes a combination of field inventories, remote sensing, GIS, and forest growth/landscape change models to characterize and address a wide array of applied forest management questions. His work is building towards a suite of spatially aware decision support tools and methods for characterizing, monitoring, and projecting changes in resources across multiple scales.

Highly Cited Paper:
“Influence of Agisoft Metashape Parameters on UAS Structure from Motion Individual Tree Detection from Canopy Height Models”
by Wade T. Tinkham and Neal C. Swayze
Forests 2021, 12(2), 250; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12020250

1. Can you introduce yourself and give an overview of your current research?

I entered forestry through a private management lens but have since found my niche in research in the overlap of biometry and remote sensing as a Research Forester for the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. We recently completed a series of studies developing unmanned aerial system (UAS)-assisted forest inventory methods for characterizing individual tree locations, heights, diameters, and crowns in open canopy forests like those dominated by ponderosa pine. Now, I am working with collaborators at the University of Idaho and Oregon State University to expand the feasibility of these methods to denser forest systems by merging below-canopy remote sensing with UAS observations. With my collaborators, we are working to make UAS-derived forest inventory data accessible for management planning.

2. What do you hope that readers will get from your paper? What do you hope this research will bring to forestry?

One of our goals with this paper was to conduct a validation of methods that actually could be interpreted by foresters. Much of the UAS structure from the motion literature focuses on validating the individual points, while foresters are still managing trees, so we cut out the middle step and demonstrated the quality of extracted tree variables. My hope is that this work will draw attention to the potential of UAS forest monitoring to provide individual tree observations, particularly in semi-arid conifer forests where the spatial arrangement of the trees has become an important emphasis for restoration.

3. What led you to publish in Forests? Was it important to you that the journal is open access?

We targeted Forests to publish this work for two reasons. First, we wanted to present this work that crosses the lines between remote sensing and forestry in an outlet that would be seen by a forestry audience. Second, we wanted to take advantage of the open access policy and ensure that this work could be accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

Wade T. Tinkham

Neal C. Swayze

Peer Review Week began 19 September 2022 under the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research”. Through various blog articles, podcast, and webinar, we discussed this crucial subject throughout the week, celebrating the essential role peer review plays in maintaining research quality.

To begin, we held a Webinar on the topic. Professor Peter W. Choate and Dr. Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi joined Dr. Ioana Craciun, one of MDPI’s scientific officers, for an in-depth discussion.

We invite you to view the event recording:

During the week, the MDPI Blog in a series articles highlighted how good Peer Review safeguards research integrity. The following topics were covered:

• Peer Review Week 2022
• Research Integrity
• What We’ve Learned About Peer Review Reports
• 4 Steps to the Perfect Peer Review Report
• How to Write the Perfect Peer Review Report: An Interview
• Inviting Great Peer Reviewers

In a new edition of Insight Faster, an MDPI podcast, we were delighted to talk to the co-chairs of the Peer Review Week committee, Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement for CACTUS) and Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) to get their take on this year’s event and its related topics.

You can find the Podcast here.

We hope you enjoy the contents!

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Cate Macinnis-Ng has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Forests (IF: 3.282, ISSN: 1999-4907).

Name: Dr. Cate Macinnis-Ng
Email: c.macinnis-ng@auckland.ac.nz
Affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand
Homepage: https://www.tepunahamatatini.ac.nz/cate-macinnis-ng/
Research keywords: plant ecophysiology; carbon and water cycles; forest function; global change

Dr. Cate Macinnis-Ng works at the University of Auckland in the School of Biological Sciences as an Associate Professor of ecology. She is a plant ecophysiologist specializing in plant–climate interactions. Her recent work has focused on drought impacts on New Zealand's iconic kauri trees. She also has broader interests in climate change impacts on biodiversity and working with Indigenous researchers and communities to achieve restoration and conservation outcomes.

The following is a short Q&A with Dr. Cate Macinnis-Ng, who shared her vision for the journal with us, as well as her views of the research area and open access publishing:

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

I am delighted to join long-standing Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Tim Martin as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Forests. Many international journals remain somewhat region-specific with most papers coming from a particular part of the world. As a researcher in the southern hemisphere, I am conscious of the fact that we see research efforts focused on European and North American species and ecosystems and this is problematic when we are trying to understand global patterns. It also highlights the inequities in distributions of funding and resources. Forest research is a truly global discipline and the research published in Forests comes from many different parts of the world. Since the journal is open access, the research is available to all. There is more we can do to increase global representation and Forests provides a solid platform for this.

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

Forests are an essential part of sustainable solutions to climate change. Developing research in this space covering ecology, physiology, production forests, urban forests and all aspects of tree biology will contribute to our understanding of how best to use forests to address climate change. This includes understanding the limitations of forest solutions, especially under future climates.

3. What is your vision for the journal? Do you have any suggestions for the future development of Forests?

I think the awards for emerging researchers are great and the electronic conferences are an excellent initiative because they are a carbon-friendly and free method for researchers to disseminate their work and network. I look forward to working with the Forests team to further increase the global reach of the journal.

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

Open access publishing is important for making results available to everyone rather than locking papers behind a paywall. I am not sure if we have found the perfect model yet, but I am pleased to be part of a journal that has all papers fully available to anyone who wants to read them. 

We warmly welcome Dr. Cate Macinnis-Ng in her new role as Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to her leading Forests to many more milestones.

A range of MDPI journals will be attending INTECOL 2022 as exhibitors. This meeting will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, from 28 August to 2 September 2022.

“Frontiers in Ecology – Science and Society” is the general theme of the conference. With an estimated number of 1500 participants coming to Geneva, and as many following the conference from a distance, the conference aims to bring the state-of-the-art expertise in ecology to the forefront of societal challenges.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Diversity (leading);
• Sustainability;
• Forests;
• Ecologies;
• Environments;
• Plants;
• Animals;
• World;
• Quaternary;
• Earth;
• Resources;
• Applied Sciences;
• Birds;
• Climate;
• Water;
• Fishes.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to start a conversation with us at our booth #03. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit http://intecol2021.org/, or contact the Diversity Editorial Office at diversity@mdpi.com.

MDPI will be attending the 6th European Congress of Conservation Biology, held in Prague, Czech Republic, from 22 to 26 August 2022.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Insects (leading journal);
• Forests;
• Horticulturae;
• JZBG.

If you plan on attending this conference, feel free to visit our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have.

For more information about the conference, please see the following link: https://www.eccb2022.eu/.

Forests is currently recruiting prestigious scholars from around the world to join our Editorial Board for the following five Sections:

• “Forest Health”;
• “Genetics and Molecular Biology”;
• “Forest Operations and Engineering”;
• “Natural Hazards and Risk Management”;
• “Forest Meteorology and Climate Change”.

Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907) is a leading international, peer-reviewed, open access, cross-disciplinary, and scholarly forestry journal. The distinguished Editorial Board and refereeing process ensure the highest degree of scientific rigor and review of all the published articles in Forests. Forests is indexed by Science Citation Index Expanded, Ei Compendex, GeoBase, Scopus, and other databases. At present, the impact factor of Forests has increased to 3.282, ranking 14th out of 69 (Q1) in the Forestry category (WOS). You can read more about the journal at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests.

The main responsibilities of Editorial Board Members are as follows:

• Prechecking and making decisions for several manuscripts based on your area of expertise;
• Acting as, or recommending, a Guest Editor for a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests;
• Promoting Forests and increasing its visibility on related academic social media.

The benefits of becoming an Editorial Board Member include the following:

• The opportunity to publish one paper per year free of charge in Forests, as well as the opportunity to receive certain discounts for papers invited from your scientific network;
• A certificate recognizing you as an Editorial Board Member of Forests;
• Forests may offer sponsorships for conferences organized by you.

To apply for this position in one of our Sections, recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Forests Editorial Office (forests@mdpi.com).

Forests Editorial Office

The 2021 citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and we’re pleased to announce the following results for MDPI journals:

For more information on Impact Factors and what it means to index academic journals, please visit our related blog posts.

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2022

Source: 2021 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ^TM (Clarivate, 2022)

MDPI’s Young Investigator Awards recognize promising junior researchers, acknowledge their contributions, and enhance communication among scientists. We are proud to present the winners for the year 2021 in the “Environmental & Earth Sciences” category. The winners were selected by the journals’ editors.

We warmly congratulate the awarded young investigators for their outstanding contributions. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Atmosphere:

• Shaojie Song, Harvard University, USA

Clean Technologies:

• Francesco Galiano, Institute on Membrane Technology of the National Research Council, Italy

Energies:

• Qilin Wang, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
• Christopher H. T. Lee, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

• Grace Vincent, Central Queensland University, Australia

Minerals:

• Antony Burnham, Australian National University, Australia

Remote Sensing:

• Celso Henrique Leite Silva Junior, National Institute for Space Research – INPE, Brasil; Agricultural Engineering Department of the State University of Maranhão – UEMA, Brazil

Sustainability:

• Baojie He, Chongqing University, China

Water:

• Stefanos Giannakis, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain

In order to acknowledge our reviewers, who so generously dedicate their time to reviewing papers and demonstrate diligence, professionalism, and timeliness when reviewing manuscripts, MDPI journals regularly offer outstanding reviewer awards to scholars who participate in the peer-review process.

We are proud to recognize winners for the year 2021 in the “Environmental & Earth Sciences” category for their outstanding contributions among extensive competition by presenting them with an Outstanding Reviewer Award.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the winners on their achievement. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Atmosphere:

• Hristo Chervenkov, National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, Bulgaria
• Jouni Räisänen, University of Helsinki, Finland

Climate:

• Piotr F. Borowski, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland

Energies:

• Elena Lucchi, Institute for Renewable Energy, Italy
• Marcin Dębowski, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland
• Miroslav Variny, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia
• Piotr F. Borowski, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland
• Vedran Mrzljak, University of Rijeka, Croatia

Forests:

• Tomasz Oszako, Forest Research Institute, Poland
• Stelian Alexandru Borz, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
• Maricar Aguilos, North Carolina State University, USA
• Narayan Bhusal, Seoul National University, South Korea

Geosciences:

• Dave Waters, University of Oxford, UK

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

• Anuli Njoku, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
• Haruna Musa Moda, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
• Jesús Molina-Mula, University of BalearicIsland, Spain
• Katharina Diehl, Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
• Katarzyna Tomaszek, Pedagogical University of Kracow, Poland
• Matteo Nioi, University of Cagliari, Italy
• Pablo A. Cantero-Garlito, Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, Spain
• Seoyong Kim, Ajou University, South Korea
• Andrzej Adamski, University of Information Technology and Management, Poland
• Adrian Curto, Faculty of Medicine, University of Salamanca, Spain
• Arkaitz Castañeda Babarro, University of Deusto, Spain
• Álvaro Francisco Lopes De Sousa, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
• Agata Gabryelska, Medical University of Lodz, Poland
• Ana Reyes Menéndez, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain
• Bartosz Dalewski, Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Poland
• Chong Chen, Yamaguchi University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan
• Carla Maria Batista Ferreira Pires, CBIOS-Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias-Escola de Ciências e Tecnologias da Saúde, Portugal
• Claudia Pisanu, University of Cagliari, Italy
• Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, USA
• Faisal F. Hakeem, King’s College London, UK
• Francisco Javier Fernández Carrasco, Punta de Europa Hospital, Spain
• Haewon Byeon, Inje University, South Korea
• HuiJun Chih, Curtin University, Australia
• Jerónimo Aragón Vela, University of Granada, Spain
• Joana Costa, University of Aveiro, Portugal,
• Joanne Lloyd, University of Wolverhampton, UK
• José Luis Romero-Bejar, University of Granada, Spain
• Laura Nathans, Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State Scranton, USA
• Mateusz Jankowski, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education, Poland
• Matteo Riccò, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Italy
• Nicola Döring, Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany
• Nora Suleiman-Martos, University of Granada, Spain
• Russell Kabir, Anglia Ruskin University, UK
• Roy McConkey, University of Ulster, UK
• Sunhee Kim, Ajou University, South Korea
• Sol García-Germán, Centro de Estudios e Investigación para la Gestión de Riesgos Agrarios y Medioambientalesdisabled, Spain
• Sebastian Rutkowski, Opole University of Technology, Poland
• Tamás Berki, University of Szeged, Hungary
• Terence Moriarty, University of Northern Iowa, USA
• Pedro Antonio Martín Cervantes, University of Almería, La Cañada de San Urbano, Spain

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information:

• Lemenkova Polina, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Andrew Newton, Nottingham Trent University, UK
• Dennis Edler, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
• Lukáš Herman, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
• Marcela Bindzarova Gergelova, Technical University of Kosice, Slovakia

Land:

• Rahul Datta, Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic
• Dirk H.R. Spennemann, Charles Sturt University, Australia
• Raimundo Jimenez-Ballesta, (Retired recently) Autonoma University of Madrid, Spain

Remote Sensing:

• Veraldo Liesenberg, Santa Catarina State University, Brazil
• Yady Tatiana Solano-Correa, University of Cauca, Colombia
• Francesco Marinello, University of Padova, Italy
• Pedro Melo-Pinto, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal
• Ignacio Bosch, Universitat Politènica de València, Spain
• Juan Soria, University of Valencia, Spain
• Chiman Kwan, Signal Processing, Inc., USA
• Benoit Vozel, University of Rennes, France
• Giuseppe Casula, National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology Unit of Bologna, Italy
• Simone Cosoli, The University of Western Australia, Australia

Resources:

• Maria Economou-Eliopoulos, University of Athens, Greece

Toxics:

• Cynthia Rider, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, USA

We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2021 Travel Awards in the “Environmental & Earth Sciences” category for their outstanding presentations and to present them with the prize.

MDPI journals regularly offer travel awards to encourage talented junior scientists to present their latest research at academic conferences in specific fields, which helps to increase their influence.

The winners mentioned below were carefully selected by the journal editors based on an outline of their research and the work to be presented at an academic conference.

We would like to warmly congratulate the Travel Awards winners for the year 2021 and wish them the greatest success with their future research endeavors. MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Atmosphere:

• Charbel Harb, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, USA
• Jibran Khan, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark

Climate:

• Agostino Niyonkuru Meroni, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
• Platon Patlakas, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Energies:

• Nnaemeka Vincent Emodi, University of Tasmania, Australia
• Irene Poza-Casado, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain

Forests:

• Pipiet Larasatie, Oregon State University, USA
• Tania L. Maxwell, French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), France

Hydrology:

• Georgia Papacharalampous, Roma Tre University, Italy
• Mattei Alexandra, University of Corsica, France

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

• Danila Azzolina, University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy
• Kelvin Fong, Yale University, USA
• Levi Frehlich, University of Calgary, Canada‎
• Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, Imperial College London, UK

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information:

• Junghwan Kim, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
• Xuke Hu, Institute of Data Science, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany

Land:

• Álvaro Castilla Beltrán, University of La Laguna, Spain
• Lauren Nerfa, University of Hawaiʻi, USA

Remote Sensing:

• Amen Al-Yaari, Sorbonne University, France
• Meng Lu, Utrecht University, Netherlands

Resources:

• Alessandro Lenci, University of Bologna, Italy
• Evangelia Georgantzia, Liverpool John Moores University, UK

Sustainability:

• Sayyed Rasoul Khayyam Nekouei, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia
• Georgia A. Papacharalampous, Roma Tre University, Italy
• Raquel Filipa da Costa Viveiros, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal
• Rajesh Pathak, South Dakota State University, USA

Water:

• Nnanake-Abasi Okon Offiong, University of Uyo, Nigeria
• Tonni Agustiono Kurniawan, Polytechnic of Health, Indonesia
• Shawna Andrea Foo, Arizona State University, USA

The purpose of our Best Paper Awards is to promote and recognize the most impactful contributions published within MDPI journals.

The editors of each journal carefully selected reviews and research papers through a rigorous judging process based on criteria such as the scientific merit, overall impact, and the quality of presentation of the papers published in the journal last year.

We are honored to present the winners in the subject areas of “Environmental & Earth Sciences”, who were selected amongst extensive competition, and congratulate the authors for their outstanding scientific publications.

MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Geosciences:

• “Distinguishing between Deep-Water Sediment Facies: Turbidites, Contourites and Hemipelagites”
  by Dorrik Stow and Zeinab Smillie
  Geosciences 2020, 10(2), 68. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences10020068
• “Review of Explosive Hydrovolcanism”
  by Károly Németh and Szabolcs Kósiks
  Geosciences 2020, 10(2), 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences10020044

Remote Sensing:

• “A Review on Deep Learning Techniques for 3D Sensed Data Classification”
  by David Griffiths and Jan Boehm
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(12), 1499. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11121499
• “Satellite Remote Sensing of Precipitation and the Terrestrial Water Cycle in a Changing Climate”
  by Vincenzo Levizzani and Elsa Cattani
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(19), 2301. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11192301
• “Evaluation of Different Machine Learning Methods and Deep-Learning Convolutional Neural Networks for Landslide Detection”
  by Omid Ghorbanzadeh, Thomas Blaschke, Khalil Gholamnia, Sansar Raj Meena, Dirk Tiede and Jagannath Aryal
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 196. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020196
• “An Integrated View of Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Changes Based on Models and Satellite Observations”
  by Ruth Mottram, Sebastian B. Simonsen, Synne Høyer Svendsen, Valentina R. Barletta, Louise Sandberg Sørensen, Thomas Nagler, Jan Wuite, Andreas Groh, Martin Horwath, Job Rosier, Anne Solgaard, Christine S. Hvidberg and Rene Forsberg
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(12), 1407. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11121407
• “UAV-Based High Resolution Thermal Imaging for Vegetation Monitoring, and Plant Phenotyping Using ICI 8640 P, FLIR Vue Pro R 640, and thermoMap Cameras”
  by Vasit Sagan, Maitiniyazi Maimaitijiang, Paheding Sidike, Kevin Eblimit, Kyle T. Peterson, Sean Hartling, Flavio Esposito, Kapil Khanal, Maria Newcomb, Duke Pauli, Rick Ward, Felix Fritschi, Nadia Shakoor and Todd Mockler
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(3), 330. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11030330

Toxics:

• “A Review of Biomonitoring of Phthalate Exposures”
  by Wang, Yu, Hongkai Zhu and Kurunthachalam Kannan
  Toxics 2019, 7(2), 21; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics7020021
• “Trace Element Uptake by Herbaceous Plants from the Soils at a Multiple Trace Element-Contaminated Site”
  by Nworie, Obinna E., Junhao Qin and Chuxia Lin
  Toxics 2019, 7(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics7010003

Water:

• “Water Quality Indices: Challenges and Application Limits in the Literature”
  by Moez Kachroud, Fabienne Trolard, Mohamed Kefi, Sihem Jebari and Guilhem Bourrié
  Water 2019, 11(2), 361. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11020361
• “A Brief Review of Random Forests for Water Scientists and Practitioners and Their Recent History in Water Resources”
  by Hristos Tyralis, Georgia Papacharalampous and Andreas Langousis
  Water 2019, 11(5), 910. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11050910
• “The Use of Non-Conventional Water Resources as a Means of Adaptation to Drought and Climate Change in Semi-Arid Regions: South-Eastern Spain”
  by Álvaro-Francisco Morote, Jorge Olcina and María Hernández
  Water 2019, 11(1), 93. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11010093
• “Hydrological Effectiveness of an Extensive Green Roof in Mediterranean Climate” 
  by Stefania Anna Palermo, Michele Turco, Francesca Principato and Patrizia Piro
  Water 2019, 11(7), 1378. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11071378
• “Forecasting Groundwater Table in a Flood Prone Coastal City with Long Short-term Memory and Recurrent Neural Networks”
  by Benjamin D. Bowes, Jeffrey M. Sadler, Mohamed M. Morsy, Madhur Behl and Jonathan L. Goodall
  Water 2019, 11(5), 1098. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11051098
• “Effectiveness of Rainwater Harvesting Systems for Flood Reduction in Residential Urban Areas”
  by Gabriele Frenib and Lorena Liuzzo
  Water 2019, 11(7), 1389. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11071389

The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Giacomo Alessandro Gerosa has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Forest Meteorology and Climate Change” in Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907).

Giacomo Alessandro Gerosa is a full professor of atmospheric physics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, campus of Brescia, Italy. He graduated in environmental sciences at the University of Milan and then obtained a Ph.D. in agricultural ecology at the same university. He was a researcher of agricultural chemistry and physics for the Catholic University for more than a decade and then an associate professor of atmospheric physics, with a teaching assignment of ecology and pollutant control in agricultural and forest ecosystems.

He is an atmospheric scientist and ecophysiologist with a particular interest in micrometeorology as it applies to agriculture, forest, and terrestrial ecology. For the past two decades, he has been measuring and modeling the exchange of carbon dioxide, water vapor, ozone, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and energy between the atmosphere and agriculture and forest ecosystems. He has participated in many international collaborative research projects and led some National and European projects.

He has published more than 100 scientific articles and some book chapters. Prof. Dr. Gerosa is the coordinator of the research group Environmental Physics and Ecophysiology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Brescia, Italy.

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

Forests is a dynamic journal where scientists from different backgrounds write and share their research. I was surprised by their offer to lead the Section “Forest Meteorology and Climate Change”. That’s a sign of openness to interdisciplinarity that I really appreciated.

Atmospheres support many biosphere processes, such as photosynthesis and respiration. A better understanding of the interactions between vegetation and the atmosphere, as well as of the related ecosystem services, is of vital interest to mankind in scenarios of climate change. I would like to create a section where foresters, ecophysiologists and meteorologists discuss ways to identify the best strategies for managing and adapting forests to environmental pollution and climate changes.

The collection of data with new measurement campaigns, even in forests located on complex terrain, and the accurate study of processes will contribute to the development of increasingly scientifically sound land-atmosphere models to predict and assess our planet's responses to ongoing climate change. It will also contribute to better management of water resources and air quality. 

Open access is a way to lower the costs of articles’ accessibility by researchers and practitioners in developing countries. At the same time, it is a way to avoid any monopolistic centralization of knowledge in a few large editorial groups, because it guarantees acceptable earnings even for small publishing houses. In both cases, it is a way to increase knowledge sharing around the world.

We wish him every success in his new position, and we look forward to his contributions to the journal.

Our Editor-in-Chief has selected a number of papers to be presented in the "Editor's Choice Articles". All of these papers have proved to be of particular interest or importance to readers. Additionally, they are always well-received by researchers.

The following new 10 papers were recently selected by the Editorial Office from the most downloaded publications in Volume 13, Issues 1–3:

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the research groups behind these exceptional papers for their contributions to Forests. We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or through your networks.

If you want to learn more about the contributions published in the “Editor’s Choice Articles”, please read the information found at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/editors_choice.

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Víctor Resco has been appointed Section Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Natural Hazards and Risk Management” in Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907).

Prof. Dr. Víctor Resco de Dios is an Associate Professor of Forest Engineering at the University of Lleida (Spain) and he also works with the Southwest University of Science and Technology (China). He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Wyoming (USA) and has previously been a faculty member at the University of Castilla-la Mancha (Spain) and at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (Australia). He has written one book on forest fires and over 100 scientific articles, and is currently listed as a highly cited scientist in Biology in the Scopus ranking. He is a fire scientist working at the biosphere–atmosphere interface. More specifically, he seeks to understand plant–drought–fire interactions from a physiological perspective and their spatial and temporal upscaling to anticipate changes in fire regimes under global change and in developing sustainable fire management strategies. He is regularly asked for comments on wildfire issues from the press globally.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Víctor Resco de Dios, 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 the role as its Editor-in-Chief?

Forests has established itself as a major journal in the field of forestry, at least in terms of the number of papers published. As a forest fires scientist, I think this is a great opportunity to provide service for the community in such an important journal by leading the Section on “Natural Hazards and Risk Management".

2. What is your vision for the journal?

Wildfires, landslides, windthrow, and many other natural disturbances are modulated by forests and their management. However, we were missing a foresty journal specialized in this field. I hope this new Section within Forests will contribute to fill in this gap by specializing on this up and coming field.

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

Global change, a process that includes climate change, changes in forest management, and many other processes, is altering the frequency and distribution of many natural hazards and how we manage them. I see global change responses as agenda setting, and the challenge lies in embedding natural risk management within both ecologically and economically sustainable forest management.

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

Open access is now very firmly established. It has solved some of the problems associated with conventional publishing. The challenge now lies in ensuring that efficient publishing is continued without becoming a burden for scientists who may face difficulties affording the publication fees.

We wish Prof. Dr. Víctor Resco de Dios every success in his new position, and we look forward to his contributions to the journal.

Our Editors-in-Chief have selected many papers to be displayed in “Editor’s Choice”. All of them have proven to be particularly interesting to authors or otherwise important to the field.

Recently, the Editorial Office selected the following papers from the most downloaded publications from Volume 12, Issues 10–12.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the research groups behind these exceptional papers for their contributions to Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907). We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this document among your colleagues or through your network.

If you want to learn more about the contributions published in “Editor’s Choice”, please click the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/editors_choice.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the Forests 2020 Best Paper Award. All papers published in the year 2020 (1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020) in Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907) were considered for the award. After a thorough evaluation of the originality and significance of the papers, citations, and downloads, the four winning papers have been selected.

Two Articles:

1. “Coastal Pine-Oak Glacial Refugia in the Mediterranean Basin: A Biogeographic Approach Based on Charcoal Analysis and Spatial Modelling”
by Gaetano Di Pasquale, Antonio Saracino, Luciano Bosso, Danilo Russo, Adriana Moroni, Giuliano Bonanomi and Emilia Allevato
Forests 2020, 11(6), 673; https://doi.org/10.3390/f11060673

2. “A Survey in Natural Forest Ecosystems of Vietnam Reveals High Diversity of both New and Described Phytophthora Taxa including P. ramorum”
by Thomas Jung, Bruno Scanu, Clive M. Brasier, Joan Webber, Ivan Milenković, Tamara Corcobado, Michal Tomšovský, Matěj Pánek, József Bakonyi, Cristiana Maia, Aneta Bačová, Milica Raco, Helen Rees, Ana Pérez-Sierra and Marília Horta Jung
Forests 2020, 11(1), 93; https://doi.org/10.3390/f11010093

Two Reviews:

1. “Living in Drylands: Functional Adaptations of Trees and Shrubs to Cope with High Temperatures and Water Scarcity”
by José Javier Peguero-Pina, Alberto Vilagrosa, David Alonso-Forn, Juan Pedro Ferrio, Domingo Sancho-Knapik and Eustaquio Gil-Pelegrín
Forests 2020, 11(10), 1028; https://doi.org/10.3390/f11101028

2. “Advances and Promises of Epigenetics for Forest Trees“
by Joana Amaral, Zoé Ribeyre, Julien Vigneaud, Mamadou Dia Sow, Régis Fichot, Christian Messier, Gloria Pinto, Philippe Nolet and Stéphane Maury
Forests 2020, 11(9), 976; https://doi.org/10.3390/f11090976

Each winner (corresponding author) will receive CHF 500 and a chance to publish a paper in Forests free of charge (Article Processing Charge: CHF 2000) in 2022. On behalf of the assessment committee, we would like to congratulate the winners on their accomplishment. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the nominated research groups of the above exceptional papers for their contributions to Forests and the Award Committee for voting and helping with this award.

Prof. Dr. Timothy A. Martin, Editor-in-Chief, on behalf of the Forests 2020 Best Paper Award Evaluation Committee

We are happy to announce the establishment of the new Section “Urban Forestry” in Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). The Section is currently recruiting an Editor-in-Chief.

The Section “Urban Forestry” aims to publish articles on original research based on green infrastructure at multiple scales, from the neighborhood, to metropolitan areas, to the regional landscape. The scope includes urban parks, street trees, landscaped boulevards, gardens, rivers and coastal promenades, greenways, river corridors, wetlands, nature preserves, shelter belts of trees, and working trees at former industrial sites. Further information about the Section may be found at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/sections/urban_forestry.

The Section Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the following:

• Defining the aims and scope of the Section;
• Advising on the strategic development of the Section;
• Ensuring that the published content is of high quality;
• Nominating/inviting Guest Editors and optionally providing them with the authority to make final acceptance decisions about submitted articles;
• Nominating/inviting contributors;
• Nominating and leading the Section Editorial Board;
• Promoting the journal at scientific conferences or through other venues;
• Conducting preliminary checks of submissions and making the final decision as to whether a paper can be accepted for publication following peer review and author revisions (when it suits your schedule).

To apply for this position, please contact the Forests Editorial Office (forests@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position.

Forests Editorial Office

On behalf of the Section Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Timothy A. Martin, and in recognition of our reviewers’ outstanding contributions to Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907), we are pleased to announce an award for reviewers who have demonstrated excellent dedication, professionalism, and timeliness in their work.

Although anonymous peer-review is one of the cornerstones of publishing high-quality, comprehensive manuscripts devoted to the advancement of science and engineering research, it is also often one of the most underappreciated. The Forests editorial team is extremely grateful to reviewers for the time, energy, and dedication that they freely provide to support their peers.

Who is eligible for this award?
All of the reviewers for Forests in 2022 will be automatically included.

What will the winners receive?
There will be four awardees this year. Each of the winners will receive the following:

• CHF 500;
• A certificate;
• An opportunity to publish a paper free of charge in 2023.

When will the winners be announced?
The winners will be announced in February 2023 on the journal website.

How can I meet the eligibility criteria?
If you have not yet reviewed papers for the journal, but would like to do so, you can register as a reviewer at: https://susy.mdpi.com/volunteer/profile/edit.

The winners will be announced on 28 February 2023 on the journal’s website. For further details, please visit the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/Forests/awards.

We are pleased to announce the two awardees for the 2022 Forests Travel Awards, Mr. Eko Setio Wibowo and Ms. Melissa Latella.

Each of the awardees will receive the following benefits:

• CHF 600 (Swiss francs);
• A certificate.

For more information about the Forests awards, please visit the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/awards.

It is a pleasure to announce the 3rd International Electronic Conference on Forests (IECF2022)—Exploring New Discoveries and New Directions in Forests. The conference has been organized by the MDPI open-access journal Forests (impact factor 2.634) and will be held online from 15 to 31 October 2022.

The conference will provide an opportunity to share new ideas, technologies, and innovations in the broad area of forest sciences with the global community of scientists in the field of forestry.

Forests are crucial for the health of our planet, as also highlighted in the recent COP26 meeting, and all stakeholders, beginning with forest scientists, must focus their attention on the overall sustainability of the forestry sector. Alongside timber production, forests provide several fundamental ecosystem services, such as biodiversity conservation, soil protection, recreation, landscape, food supply, and carbon stocking, without forgetting the value in terms of aesthetics, education, spiritualism, art, and identity that forests possess. It is up to us to manage forests in the best possible way, allowing them to continue to carry out all of these crucial roles. The global pandemic has further increased, if possible, the importance of forests, highlighting their relevance to human health.

Taking into account the abovementioned factors, the role of forest research is fundamental, and only through sharing knowledge and competence among the different sectors of forest science will it be possible to achieve the ambitious but crucial goal of Sustainable Forest Management.

Therefore, we invite you to join us with your work and be part of this exciting experience.

The topics of the conference include:

1. Forest Ecology and Management;
2. Forest Ecophysiology and Genetics;
3. Wood Science, Production Chains, Fuelwood and Trade;
4. Forest Operations and Engineering;
5. Forest and Urban Forest Sustainability;
6. Forest Inventory, Quantitative Methods and Remote Sensing;
7. Forest Wildfires and Other Natural Hazards;
8. Forest Economics, Policy and Social Science;
9. Forest Climate Regulation.

For the IECF2022, participation and attendance are FREE of charge. Hopefully, this means it will be an inclusive and sustainable conference due to the lack of taxes, travel costs, or other related expenditures. All you need is a computer and access to the Internet. This online event will bring together researchers from all over the world. However, this conference represents a commitment to a “physical” meeting, which we hope will be held in the very near future.

We warmly invite our colleagues from across the world to actively take part in this important and inspiring event by presenting their latest work.

Event Awards

To acknowledge the support of the conference’s esteemed authors and recognize their outstanding scientific accomplishments, we are pleased to launch the Best Paper Award and the Best Poster Award.

The winners will receive the following:

• 350 Swiss francs;
• A certificate;
• Opportunities to publish one paper in Forests with a 50% discount before 31 December 2023.

For more information on IECF, please visit the conference website (https://sciforum.net/event/IECF2022) or contact us by email (iecf2022@mdpi.com).

The Forests Editorial Board and editorial team would like to gratefully acknowledge the time and energy given by reviewers in assessing the manuscripts submitted to the journal. With their great support, many interesting papers of high quality have been published in Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907) and a quick peer review process is maintained. In order to acknowledge our reviewers, the editorial team has dedicated an award to reviewers in gratitude for their exceptional dedication, professionalism, and timeliness in reviewing manuscripts for Forests.

The following four referees will be awarded the Forests 2021 Outstanding Reviewer prize on the basis of the quantity, timeliness, and quality of their reviews in 2021. Each of them will receive CHF 500, a certificate, and a 50% discount on APC for their outstanding review work. We are very pleased to acknowledge the following referees:

If you are interested in reviewing articles for Forests, please register your contact details, including your ORCID identifier, institutional affiliation, a short CV, and 5–6 keywords in line with your expertise at the following link: https://susy.mdpi.com/volunteer_reviewer/step/1. The managing editors will send you a notification once approved.

Prof. Dr. Timothy A. Martin
Editor-in-Chief

We are pleased to announce that Forests is now inviting nominations for the Forests 2021 Early Career Investigator Award. This prize will be awarded to two early career investigators in recognition of their excellence in the fields covered by Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907). All nominations will be assessed by an evaluation committee, which will be led by the Editor-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Timothy A. Martin.

The prize:

• An official certificate;
• CHF 1000 (Swiss francs);
• The option to publish two papers, after peer review, in Forests, with a 50% discount on the article processing charge.

Eligibility and requirements:

• Must have received a Ph.D. degree on, or after, 1 January 2017;
• Must have produced ground-breaking research and made a significant contribution to the advancement of Forests;
• Candidates must be nominated by senior scientists;
• Exemptions to the five years since Ph.D. criterion will be permitted for career interruptions, including caring responsibilities, disability, disaster management and recovery (excluding the COVID-19 pandemic), medical conditions, parental leave, and unemployment. If you would like to apply for an exemption, please submit a statement that clearly describes the nature and duration of the disruption. Please include the name of a senior researcher who can verify the statement.

List of documents for nomination:

• Detailed curriculum vitae, including an updated publication list and a list of the researcher’s own research grants;
• Scanned copy of the candidate’s doctorate certificate;
• Signed nomination letters from two established senior scientists;
• Statement of career interruption (if applicable).

Schedule:

• Nomination deadline: 31 August 2022;
• Winner announcement: 31 October 2022.

How to submit nominations?

• The nominations must be submitted online.

If you, or anyone you know, are qualified for the award, please apply at your earliest convenience. Please do not hesitate to contact us at forests@mdpi.com with any questions.

Find more details and to apply for the award, please visit the following website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/awards.

It is our pleasure to announce that we are now inviting applications for the Forests 2021 Best Ph.D. Thesis Award (award: CHF 500). This prize will be awarded to two Ph.D. students who are expecting to graduate or participate in a graduation thesis soon. If you are interested in applying for this award, please submit your application and relevant documents via the following link, by 31 May 2022: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/awards/submit/1477.

The winners of this award will be announced on the journal website on 31 July 2022. For more details about Forests awards, please visit the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/awards.

Forests Editorial Office

“Editor’s Choice” articles are papers that have been specially collated by our Editor-in-Chief. All have had a significant influence on the scientific community.

Recently, the Editorial Office selected another 10 papers from among the most downloaded publications in Volume 12, Issues 7–9. The following papers were selected:

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the research groups behind these exceptional papers for their contribution to Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907). We would be very appreciative if you shared these selected papers among your colleagues or through your network.

If you want to learn more about the contributions published in “Editor’s Choice”, please follow this link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/editors_choice.

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members and Editors in MDPI's journals who have been distinguished as 2021 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We herewith express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to make on scientific progress and on our journals' development.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

The full list of 2021 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed at the following webpage in the Web of Science^TM https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

Academic editors play a crucial role in leading our journals and ensuring that each article undergoes a robust and timely peer-review. With the launch of Topics this year and addition of Topic Editors to our family of academic editors, we decided it would be a good time to restructure our academic boards, thus providing more clarity and support for each role. MDPI is pleased to announce the launch of a new position—Topical Advisory Panel Member, that will replace the previous position of Topics Board Member. The Topical Advisory Panel will be comprised of early career researchers eager to gain experience in editorial work.

The main responsibility of the new members of the Topical Advisory Panel is to regularly provide support to Guest Editors, Topic Editors, and Section Board Members. The responsibilities of the Topical Advisory Panel are available here: https://www.mdpi.com/editors.

Each year, the members’ performances are evaluated, and outstanding members are promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief.

To qualify as a Topical Advisory Panel Member, applicants must:

• Have expertise and experience in the field related to the journal;
• Have received a Ph.D. in the last 10 years, approximately;
• Have at least 6-8 published papers in the last 5 years as first author or corresponding author;
• Currently hold an independent research position in academia or a government institute.

If you are interested in this role, please contact the editorial office by email.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Founded in 1996, MDPI was one of the first fully Open Access publisher. Over 25 years MDPI has grown to become the largest Open Access publisher globally, publishing over 160,000 articles across more than 350 journals in 2020. At the core, MDPI was founded in response to a pressing need of fast publication and inclusion. The scholar was set at the centre of the publication process for the first time. Acting as a service provider, rather than a product provider, MDPI exists to help scientists achive their objective to disseminate research results. At MDPI, we believe scientists deserve a better service from the publishing world.

The International Open Access Week (Open Access Week), founded by the SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Alliance and student partners in 2008, has been successfully running for 13 years. As an advocate and pioneer of open access publishing, MDPI actively responds to the call of International Open Access Week. This year’s theme of “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity” highlights the Recommendation’s call for equitable participation from all authors and readers.

For the last 25 years, MDPI has been committed to disseminating open research. Here is a video showing MDPI’s Commitment to Equity, Inclusion and Diversity for More than 25 Years.

International Open Access Week is an important opportunity to catalyze new conversations, create connections across and between communities that can facilitate this co-design, and advance progress in the building of more equitable foundations for opening knowledge—discussions and actions that need to be continued, year in and year out. MDPI has always aimed to provide professional and efficient publishing services to scholars around the world.

Our mission is to make scientific research accessible to everyone; this year, we interview and hold discussions with open science ambassadors on how to build an equal and inclusive environment for open science. Academic editors help us collaborate with more institutions to advocate for open access ideas.

Read our anniversary blog post: "Sharing 'Collective Human Knowledge': The Benefits of Open Access Publication"

Besides this, our scientific community is a key driver of our success and MDPI’s remarkable growth. Despite the pandemic, we have prepared online conferences and workshops to gather scholars from different communities.

The Basel Sustainable Publishing online forum provides an equal opportunity for stakeholders and researchers from multi-cultural environments to exchange ideas and eliminate barriers to participation.

Conference date: 25 October 2021, online
Conference website: https://bspf2021.sciforum.net/
Main topics: MDPI discusses the current dilemma of open access science from various perspectives such as governments, libraries, and publishers, and related measures on how to change the status quo of discrimination from a global perspective.

We aim to support equality, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications. We collaborate with universities and key laboratories and have scholarly communications with researchers, teachers, and students on open access workshops.

• 25 October 2021
  Energies journal and Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

• 28 October 2021
  Machines journal and State Key Laboratory of Traction Power, Southwest Jiaotong University

• 29 October 2021
  Processes journal and Beijing Institute of Technology

• 29 October 2021
  Coatings journal and Wuhan University of Technology

MDPI is committed to providing open access and high-quality publishing services for scholars and promoting rapid dissemination of academic achievements. We hope to promote the practices and policies of open access publishing and diversify the dissemination of academic achievements.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Prof. Dr. Rodolfo Picchio as Editor-in-Chief of the “Forest Operations and Engineering” Section of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907), as of September 2021.

Prof. Dr. Rodolfo Picchio obtained a Forest Sciences degree and a Ph.D. in Forest Mechanization at Tuscia University, Viterbo. He began his career in 2004, working as a university researcher until 2014. Since then, he has been an Associate Professor in Forest Logging and Wood Technologies and led the Forest Utilization Research Work Group at Tuscia University (DAFNE). From 2015 to 2017, he served as the president of Conservation and Restoration of the Forest Environment and Soil Defense, a Master’s program at Tuscia University (DAFNE). Since 2018, he has served on the board of Tuscia University’s Ph.D. programs, including Science and Technologies for Forest and Environmental Management (2005–2013) and Engineering for Energy and Environment. His fields of expertise include forest operation engineering, forest logging, forest mechanization, precision forestry, wood technologies, and the environmental impacts of wood harvesting operations. He is also on the editorial boards of international scientific journals covering forestry and forest engineering subjects. He continues to be a participant in cost, life, horizon, and international cooperation projects, coordinating several EAFRD-funded rural development programs (RDPs). Furthermore, he has co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed papers in international journals indexed by WoS and Scopus, 30 technical books, and over 200 papers in technical journals. He is also a member of the scientific Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology. At Tuscia University, he teaches a variety of modules, including Forest Operations, Planning and Management of Forest Yards, Reduced Impact Logging, and Research Application on Forest Logging.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Rodolfo Picchio:

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

The Forests journal in these recent years has achieved significant levels of interest among forestry and environmental scientists, as demonstrated by the high bibliometric indices obtained. However, there was a gap related to the important Section "Forest Operations and Engineering (FOsE)". As an expert in the field, I noticed how it was necessary to provide specific skills on FOsE within the Editorial Board in order to improve the level of research published directly from the journal.

For these reasons, I accepted the opportunity to serve as an Editor-in-Chief. This is a great honor for me and, together with our outstanding Editorial Board members, I am looking forward to shaping the future of this journal to cater effectively and efficiently to our science community.

2. What is your vision for the journal?

To make Forests a leading open access journal platform for the publication of high-quality and high-impact research papers from all areas of forest sciences.

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

The field of forest sciences is highly interdisciplinary and complex. Big data, artificial intelligence, and precision forestry will be the leading power tools to reshape the field of forest sciences in the coming years. However, researchers are at the forefront of addressing sustainability, management, as well as the conservation of forests. These objectives are not only achievable with new technologies but with the widespread transfer of knowledge on a global level.

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

Open access has permitted or is better at permitting, the widespread transfer of knowledge on a global level.

The editorial team warmly welcomes Prof. Dr. Rodolfo Picchio as Editor-in-Chief of the “Forest Operations and Engineering” Section and looks forward to his contribution to the continued success of Forests.

For further information on the journal sections, please click here.