International Journal of Remote Sensing

Cryospheric Hazards in a Warming World: Advances in Remote Sensing, AI, and Risk Preparedness

The cryosphere is experiencing rapid and unprecedented changes due to global warming, resulting in a rise in hazards such as glacial lake outburst floods, ice-rock avalanches, snow avalanches, and permafrost-related slope failures. These hazards create significant risks for communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems in mountain and polar regions. This Special Issue will bring together studies that use remote sensing, AI/ML, UAV surveys, and modelling approaches to improve the detection, monitoring, and prediction of cryosphere-related hazards, and to enhance preparedness and risk reduction.

• Focus on remote sensing applications (optical, SAR, LiDAR, UAV, InSAR, multi-sensor) for detecting and monitoring cryosphere hazards.
• Encourage integration of remote sensing with field observations, GNSS/GPS, UAV surveys, bathymetry, seismic measurements, and geodetic data.
• Highlight applications of AI and machine learning for hazard detection, classification, forecasting, and near-real-time monitoring.
• Include modelling studies of GLOFs, avalanches, slope failures, and cascading multi-hazard chains.
• Showcase global case studies from the Himalaya, Alps, Andes, Arctic, and other high-mountain regions.
• Encourage papers linking hazard processes with exposure, vulnerability, community impacts, and risk mitigation strategies.
• Out-of-scope topics include studies without a remote sensing component, purely descriptive case reports, and hazards unrelated to the cryosphere.