Remote Sensing of Land - Gatha Cognition

‘Remote Sensing of Land’ (RSL) publishes double-blind peer-reviewed articles in all fields of remote sensing of land.

Land is a wider concept than soil or terrain. It is a reasonably stable, or predictably cyclic, bio-physical unit of the earth’s surface: relief, soils, surface hydrology (shallow lakes, rivers, marshes and swamps), near-surface geology (sedimentary layers and groundwater), the near-surface atmosphere and vegetation, which together shape the potential for land use — and the results of past and present human activity, such as land reclaimed from the sea, vegetation clearance, soil salinisation and waterlogging, drainage structures, and infrastructure such as roads and buildings.

Land provides environmental services, including biodiversity protection, carbon control, nutrient cycles, water and groundwater conservation, forestry and scenic beauty. Millions of people have been directly affected by land degradation in recent decades, and billions are at risk. Effective monitoring and assessment of sustainable land management (SLM) needs advanced tools and methods, and remote sensing is an efficient way to build the scientific base that SLM requires. RSL therefore publishes innovative methods and techniques for the remote sensing and analysis of land.

At a glance

What we publish

How we publish

• Online journal: articles are published Online First as soon as they are accepted and the proofs approved, then placed in an issue.
• Every article gets a Crossref DOI, and CrossMark on its web page and PDF shows readers any later update.
• No fee to submit or be reviewed, and no page or colour charges.
• Authors choose Standard publication at no cost, or Open Access Plus (free for everyone to read, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) after acceptance.
• In 2026, every article submitted is published free of charge and Open Access.
• We follow the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and every manuscript is checked for similarity.

More about the journal