Droughts are among the most economically and ecologically destructive natural hazards, affecting more than half of the world's land surface annually and increasing in frequency and severity under anthropogenic climate change. Unlike episodic disasters such as earthquakes or hurricanes, droughts develop gradually and their full impacts may not be evident until months or years after peak conditions. This systematic review synthesises current knowledge of drought monitoring and prediction methods, encompassing approximately 27 drought indices—spanning meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, and remote sensing categories—and six major classes of prediction model: regression, time series,... More >

The planning of metropolises is a challenging issue, as it guides the high-quality development of developing cities. Providing a development direction through rational planning while avoiding path dependency is a key challenge for developing cities pursuing high-quality development. This issue is discussed in this paper, with the Nanchang Metropolitan Area, China, taken as an example. The solution involves analyzing the urban spatial pattern to reveal the phased characteristics and evolutionary trajectory of the urbanization process, and comparing it with developed cities to provide insights. To this end, satellite remote sensing data and landscape indices are used for the analysis. Data sou... More >

In semi-arid regions, desertification is a critical environmental degradation factor. This study analyzes land degradation and desertification vulnerability dynamics in Ningxia, China (2001–2022) using the MEDALUS framework with a Random Forest classifier. Land-cover change was significant due to irrigation and agricultural expansion, with farmland increasing to 65.29% of the landscape while grassland shrank to 10.13%, intensifying ecological pressure. Bare land followed a U-shaped trend, reaching 9.17% in 2022, indicating increased soil exposure. Soil quality remained moderately stable, with 70–80% of land retaining integrity despite ongoing degradation. Vegetation quality fluctuated co... More >

Remote sensing data analysis and interpretation present unique challenges due to the diversity in sensor modalities and spatiotemporal dynamics of Earth observation data. Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model has emerged as a powerful paradigm that addresses these challenges by dynamically routing inputs to specialized experts designed for different aspects of a task. However, despite rapid progress, the community still lacks a comprehensive review of MoE for remote sensing. This survey provides the first systematic overview of MoE applications in remote sensing, covering fundamental principles, architectural designs, and key applications across a variety of remote sensing tasks. The survey also ou... More >

Presents the introductory editorial for the inaugural issue of the journal. More >