The 5th International Electronic Conference on Forests
The 5th International Electronic Conference on Forests
Forests at the Crossroads: Integrating Ecology, Technological Innovation, and Governance
Part of the International Electronic Conference on Forests series
Event's Timezone: Central European Summer Time
17 May 2026
16 July 2026
19 July 2026
15 August 2026
9 September 2026
forest ecology, remote sensing, sustainable forest management, wood science, climate change, wildfire, ecosystems service, tree physiology
The IECF 2026 is Now OPEN for Abstract Submission and Registration.
Instructions for authors are available online.
Submit your abstracts HERE.
For any inquiries, please contact us at iecf2026@mdpi.com.
Welcome from the Chairs
We are pleased to extend a warm and heartfelt welcome to each of you on behalf of the organizing committee of the 5th International Electronic Conference on Forests—Forests at the Crossroads: Integrating Ecology, Technological Innovation, and Governance, which will be hosted online and promoted by the open access MDPI journal Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907; IF: 2.5).
The aim of this gathering is to bring together academics, practitioners, and innovators whose works shape the future of forest science. Participants come from a wide range of institutions and professional backgrounds across the globe, each contributing valuable experiences, perspectives, and insights that reflect the complexity and diversity of our planet’s forests.
Throughout the conference, we aim to cover—among others—the following topics:
S1. Forest Ecology and Sustainable Management;
S2. Forest Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services, and Earth Observations;
S3. Wood Science, Production Chains, Fuelwood and Trade;
S4. Forest Inventory, Modeling and Remote Sensing;
S5. Wildfires and Other Forest Disturbances;
S6. Forest Ecophysiology, Genetics and Molecular Biology.
Once again, welcome to IECF 2026. We look forward to a stimulating and rewarding experience.
Download the conference flyer and share it with your colleagues!
Kind regards,
Dr. Mark Vanderwel, University of Regina, Canada
Dr. Nikolay S. Strigul, Washington State University Vancouver, USA
Chairs of the 5th International Electronic Conference on Forests
Event Chairs
Mark Vanderwel holds a Ph.D. in Forestry from the University of Toronto and is currently Associate Professor at the University of Regina. His research in forest ecology focuses on how tree-level demographic processes interact with disturbance to create changing patterns of structure, biomass, and diversity within forest stands and landscapes. By understanding how tree growth, mortality, and recruitment are controlled by different environmental factors, he seeks to learn how processes such as climate change and disturbance affect the broader condition of forest ecosystems over time.
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, College of Arts and Sciences, Washington State University Vancouver, Vancouver, USA
Dr Nikolay Strigul is an Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics at WSU Vancouver. He has previously held research and faculty positions at Stevens Institute of Technology and Princeton University. His research centers on mathematical modeling of forest dynamics, with the goal of understanding and predicting the impacts of environmental stressors and land-use practices. He integrates mathematical and statistical methodologies with experimental studies and remote sensing technologies to advance our understanding of biological phenomena across multiple scales. His research interests include forest modeling, environmental science, remote sensing, applied mathematics and statistics, complex adaptive systems, as well as data-intensive and individual-based models.
Session Chairs
Prof. Dr. Luis Ángel Ruiz
Department of Cartographic Engineering, Geodesy and Photogrammetry, Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Valencia, Spain
Dr. Luis A. Ruiz is a professor of remote sensing and digital image processing and co-director of the GeoEnvironmental Cartography and Remote Sensing group (http://cgat.webs.upv.es/) at Polytechnic University of Valencia. He has been visiting lecturer at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences and a visiting researcher at LARSE (OSU), RSGAL (UW), USFS Missoula Fire Sciences and Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences labs. From 2013 to 2023 was editor in chief of the Spanish Journal of Remote Sensing, and since 2022 president of the Spanish Association of Remote Sensing. His main research interests are focused on forest structure and fuel characterization using LiDAR, point clouds, multispectral satellite and aerial imagery. His group has developed new data processing tools for application in wildfires, fuels, forestry, and agriculture.
Prof. Dr. Krzysztof Stereńczak
Department of Geomatics, Forest Research Institute, Braci Leśnej 3 Street, Sękocin Stary, 05-090 Raszyn, Poland
Prof. Krzysztof Stereńczak is the Head of the Department of Geomatics at the Forest Research Institute and leads the Digital Forest Team IDEAS Research Institute. He is a member of the Forest Science and Wood Technology Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences. His academic experience includes scientific internships at the University of Freiburg and the WSL. Prof. Stereńczak has authored more than 180 peer-reviewed scientific publications, primarily in journals indexed in the Journal Citation Report. He has coordinated or contributed to numerous national and international research projects, notably leading the REMBIOFOR project on remote sensing-based assessment of woody biomass and carbon storage, and the LIFE+ ForBioSensing PL project focused on monitoring stand dynamics in Białowieża Forest using remote sensing. His current work includes involvement in six national and international research projects, with research focused on forest condition monitoring via remote sensing, precision forest management applications of remote sensing data, and implementation of close-range remote sensing for forest inventory. He has supervised six PhD dissertations, four of which received distinctions, and currently mentors five doctoral students. Between 2008 and 2024, he has received 24 awards and medals for his scientific and organizational contributions.
Event Committee
Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
TianXiang Yue received his Ph.D. degree in system ecology from Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1992. He has been working as a professor at State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System since 2000. He is a pioneering expert in the methods for high accuracy surface modelling (HASM), methods for classical and quantum machine learning, the fundamental theorem for eco-environmental surface modelling, and algorithms for spatial interpolation, spatial upscaling, spatial downscaling, data fusion and model–data assimilation. The methods and algorithms have been successfully applied to modeling nature, nature’s contribution to people, and driving forces of their changes.
School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
Dr. Georgios Mallinis is a Professor in the School of Rural and Surveying Engineering at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh), Greece. His research focuses on Remote Sensing and GIS applications for mapping and monitoring terrestrial ecosystems, with an emphasis on forest ecosystem mapping and land use/land cover (LULC), biodiversity assessment, and disaster management. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, books, and international conference proceedings, and has coordinated or participated in more than 45 EU- and nationally funded research projects. He currently serves as Section Editor-in-Chief of Forests (Natural Hazards and Risk Management Section).
Professor Mathieu Pétrissans is an Exceptional National Class Professor at the University of Lorraine, France. He served as Vice-President of Research at Nancy 2 University (from 2010 to 2012, 19,000 Students), Dean of the Technological Institute of Epinal (450 Students, 2014-2022); Director of the Technological Collegium (2022-2023, 8,000 students) and Co-Director of the « Cluster of Excellence ARTEMIS» (Advanced Research and educaTion on the biology, the Ecology, the Management and the biomonItoring of forest ecoSystems in a changing world, 2021-). He's an international expert of biomass and wood thermal behavior, focusing on the thermal treatment. His main scientific achievements are the description of the thermodegradation chemical pathways of wood biopolymers during the torrefaction or the pyrolysis. These results have been integrated in a tow-step kinetics model, to predict the industrial treatment times as a function of the temperature and the wood specie. He has published 90 papers in international peer-reviewed journals.
School of Forestry and Biotechnology, Zhejiang A & F University, Hangzhou, China
Dr. Prof. Zhaojiang Zuo mainly researches Plant VOCs and Their Physiological and Ecological Functions. He has been elected as the first batch of " High-Level Talent in Colleges and Universities in Zhejiang Province, China" and "Outstanding Young in Zhejiang A&F University". He is in charge of the key experimental direction of Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Forest Aromatic Plants-based Healthcare Functions, and invited to serve as the guest editor in three international journals, such as Plants, Frontiers in Microbiology, and Forests. He has hosted 3 National Natural Science Foundation of China and 2 Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, China (1 key project). Now, he has published near 100 papers, including more than 50 SCI papers as the first and/ or corresponding author, with H-index 25, and obtained 3 national patents as the first inventor. https://sky.zafu.edu.cn/info/1190/5687.htm
Miklós Bak holds a PhD in materials science and technology from University of Sopron, Hungary. He has gained practical experience working in higher education and research for 15 years, participating in and leading several national and international projects. He is currently conducting research at University of Sopron, focusing on wood modification using biopolymers, nanoparticles, silicon compounds and different combined methods. He aims to find ways for sustainable production of durable and dimensionally stable wood. He is author or co-author of almost 75 scientific publications.
Department of Geography, University of Valladolid, Soria, Spain
iuFOR, Campus Universitario Duques de Soria, University of Valladolid, Soria, Spain
GEOFOREST, Department of Geography, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain
Dario Domingo is an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Valladolid. His expertise lies in the use of remote sensing and geospatial modelling to study forest ecosystems, assessing their value as carbon and biodiversity reservoirs under threats such as wildfires and pests. He also investigates land-use changes to support sustainable territorial planning and landscape management. His research combines spatial data, modelling techniques, and interdisciplinary approaches to address the challenges of global change. He has published 30 papers in international peer-reviewed journals.
Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Latokartanonkaari 9, Helsinki, Finland
Adriano Mazziotta holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) and is currently Research Scientist at the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). His research focuses on different aspects of European forests, including ecology and management, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services and global change. He makes use of complementary techniques including statistical modelling, analysis of remote sensing data, GIS applications, uncertainty analysis and decision support systems. He is currently involved in national and international projects related with sustainable forest management, forest transformation for sustainability, forest planning for ecosystem services, biodiversity protection and recovery of ecosystem resilience.
Dr. Hu Yanbo works in Institute of Science and Technology, Northeast Forestry University. He is a member of Chinese Society for Plant Biology, Tree Physiology and Biochemistry Committee, Chinese Society of Forestry. His research interests mainly focus on plant physiology, photosynthesis, atmosphere nitrogen deposition, and arbuscular mycorrhiza symbiosis. Recent research results were published in 66 academic journals such as Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, Journal of Plant Physiology, and Plant Cell Reports. His H-Index is 20. Dr. Hu hosted or participated as a core member in 30 research projects, including National Natural Science Foundation of China, The 13th/14th Five-Year National Key Research and Development Program. Dr. Hu serves as an editor or editorial board member for Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture, Journal of Forestry Research, Forests, guest editor for Plant Biology, Journal of Forestry Research, Frontiers in Plant Science, etc. He received the Springer Nature Editor of Distinction Award 2025- The Author Service Award for contributions to Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture, Heilongjiang Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award. He is a peer reviewer for more than 26 peer-reviewed journals, including New Phytologist, Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, Biomass and Bioenergy, Environmental and Experimental Botany, Journal of Plant Physiology, etc.
Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Toledo, Spain
Dr. Olga Viedma is a geographer with a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences, specializing in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). She is the scientific leader of the Fire Ecology and Other Disturbances in the Context of Global Change (GLOBECO) research group at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Biochemistry, University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM). Currently, Dr. Viedma serves as an Assistant Professor at UCLM, where her primary research focuses on Landscape Ecology and Forest Fires. Her work has centered on: i) developing new methodologies for fire mapping using satellite imagery; ii) analyzing spatio-temporal patterns of forest fires and assessing fire hazard; and iii) studying fire severity and post-fire regeneration through satellite and LiDAR data. In addition to her research activities, Dr. Viedma is the Coordinator of the Official Master’s Degree in Environmental Sustainability in Local and Territorial Development, offered by the Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Biochemistry at UCLM.
Department of Agroforestry Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, Spain
PhD in Forestry Engineering from the School of Forestry Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid. His research interests include Forest Ecology and Sustainable Management, Forest Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services, and Wood Science. He has co-authored more than 50 articles in journals indexed in the Web of Science database, as well as several books, book chapters, and conference papers, both national and international. He has directed and participated in various research projects and supervised six doctoral theses. Finally, I would like to highlight his research placements at various universities, most recently at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZU), which lasted five months.
Institute of Environmental Protection and Nature Conservation, Faculty of Forestry, University of Sopron, Sopron, Hungary
Dr. Tamás Hofmann graduated as a chemical engineer, holds a Ph.D. in forestry from the University Sopron, Hungary and works currently as an associate professor at the same university. His main research field is wood chemistry and focuses on biochemical changes in trees during heartwood formation and discoloration processes as well as on the chemical traits of trees associated with climate change. Besides he has also broad experience in the investigation of the chemical properties of timbers, especially modified wood and in the research of the biorefinery valorization of forestry byproducts and agroforestry systems crops.
Department of Ecology and Silviculture, University of Agriculture in Kraków, Kraków, Poland
Maciej Pach is Vice-Dean for Education and Student Affairs at the Faculty of Forestry, University of Agriculture in Krakow. He has participated in developing the full-time and part-time undergraduate and graduate study programs in the field of Forestry. He conducts lectures and tutorials in Polish and English in the field of Forestry for Polish and international students. He has participated in, organised, and taught on several international ERASMUS+ courses. His primary scientific interest is focused on close-to-nature silviculture, mixed-species forests, old-growth forests, tree and stand growth modelling, climate-smart silviculture, adaptive forest management, and forms of tree interactions (competition) in a stand. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of several international scientific journals. Author or co-author of nearly 100 scientific publications, primarily in international scientific journals. He is a member of the Committee on Forest Sciences and Wood Technology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He has received multiple awards from the Rector of the University of Agriculture in Kraków for academic excellence.
Sessions
S2. Forest Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services, and Earth Observations
S3. Wood Science, Production Chains, Fuelwood and Trade
S4. Forest Inventory, Modeling and Remote Sensing
S5. Wildfires and Other Forest Disturbances
S6. Forest Ecophysiology, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Registration
When registering as an "Academic", please register with your academic email address, as this will accelerate the registration process. If you are registering several people under the same registration, please do not use the same email address for each person, but their individual university email addresses. Thank you for understanding.
Participation to the conference is considered final only once the registration fees have been paid. The number of participants is limited: once the number of paid registrations reaches the maximum number of participants, unpaid registrations will be cancelled.
Please note that, in order to finalize the scientific program in due time, at least one registration by any of the authors, denoted as the “Covering Author”, is required to cover the presentation and publication of any accepted abstract. The “Covering Author” registration deadline is 15 August 2026. Your abstract will be withdrawn if your registration is not completed by this date.
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Group of 3, 5% off;
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Group of 5 or more, 10% off;
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Group of 10 or more, 15% off.
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Early Bird Until 19 July 2026 |
Regular Until 9 September 2026 |
Supported documents | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author, Reviewers, Topical Advisory Panel Members, Review Board Members, Guest Editors | 30.00 CHF | 50.00 CHF | |
| Student | 30.00 CHF | 50.00 CHF |
Please upload the front and back of your valid Student lD card. |
| Academic | 50.00 CHF | 70.00 CHF | |
| Non-academic | 100.00 CHF | 150.00 CHF |
| Supported documents | |
|---|---|
| Conference Chairs, Session Chairs, Committee Members of the Conference, Keynote Speakers, Invited Speakers, MDPI Guests, Editorial Board Members |
Please upload your invitation email. |
| Listener (will receive the Zoom link for the live session — no certificate) |
Cancellation policy
| > 2 weeks before the conference | Full refund |
| < 2 weeks before the conference | No refund |
Disclaimer
We will endeavour to present the program advertised. However, MDPI and its partners reserve the right to alter or cancel, without prior notice, arrangements, timetables, plans, or other items relating directly or indirectly to the 5th International Electronic Conference on Forests—Forests at the Crossroads: Integrating Ecology, Technological Innovation, and Governance. MDPI and its partners are not liable for any loss or inconvenience caused as a result of such cancellation.
Beware of Unauthorized Registration
Note that Sciforum is the only official registration platform to register to IECF 2026. Beware that entering into financial agreements with non-endorsed companies can have costly consequences.
Insurance
The organizers do not accept liability for personal accident, loss, or damage to private property incurred as a result of participation in the event.
Payment methods
Wire transfer, Credit card
Currencies accepted by this event
Swiss francs (CHF) , Euros (EUR) , US dollars (USD) , Pounds sterling (GBP) , Japanese yen (JPY) , Canadian dollars (CAD) and Singapore dollars (SGD)
Instructions for Authors
The 5th International Electronic Conference on Forests will accept abstracts only. The accepted abstracts will be available online on Sciforum.net during and after the conference.
2. All abstracts should be submitted and presented in clear, publication-ready English with accurate grammar and spelling.
3. You may submit multiple abstracts. However, only one abstract will be selected for oral presentation.
4. The abstracts submitted to this conference must be original and novel, without prior publication in any journals or it will not be accepted to this conference.
1. The submitting author must ensure that all co-authors are aware of the contents of the abstract.
2. Please select only one presenter for each submission. If you would like to change the presenter after submission, please email us accordingly.
The slot for the oral presentation is 15 mins. We advise that your presentation lasts for a maximum of 12 mins, leaving at least 3 mins for the Q&A session.
Authors are encouraged to prepare a presentation in PowerPoint or similar software, to be displayed online along with the abstract. Slides, if available, will be displayed directly on the website using the proprietary slide viewer at Sciforum.net. Slides can be prepared in exactly the same way as for any traditional conference where research results are presented. Slides should be converted to PDF format prior to submission so that they can be converted for online display.
- Should include the title, authors, contact details and main research findings, as well as tables, figures and graphs where necessary.
- Size in pixel: 1080 width x 1536 height–portrait orientation.
- Size in cm: 38, 1 width x 54, 2 height–portrait orientation.
- Font size: ≥16.
- Examples of successful submissions can be viewed here at the following links: (1), (2), (3).
- You can use our free template to create your poster.
The poster template can be downloaded HERE. We will reach out to you closer to the dates of the conference with more information.
It is the author's responsibility to identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of clinical research. If there is no conflict, please state "The authors declare no conflicts of interest." This should be conveyed in a separate "Conflict of Interest" statement preceding the "Acknowledgments" and "References" sections at the end of the manuscript. Any financial support for the study must be fully disclosed in the "Acknowledgments" section.
MDPI, the publisher of the Sciforum.net platform, is an open access publisher. We believe authors should retain the copyright to their scholarly works. Hence, by submitting an abstract to this conference, you retain the copyright to the work, but you grant MDPI the non-exclusive right to publish this abstract online on the Sciforum.net platform. This means you can easily submit your full paper (with the abstract) to any scientific journal at a later stage and transfer the copyright to its publisher if required.
Publication Opportunities
- Forests Journal Publication
Participants in this conference are cordially invited to contribute a full manuscript to the conference's Special Issue (to be updated), published in Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907, Impact Factor: 2.5), with a 20% discount on the publication fee. Please note, if you have IOAP/association discounts, conference discounts will be combined with IOAP/association discounts. Conference discounts cannot be combined with reviewer vouchers. All submitted papers will undergo MDPI’s standard peer-review procedure. The abstracts should be cited and noted on the first page of the paper.
- Proceeding Paper Publication
If participants wish to publish an extended proceeding paper (4–8 pages) to Environmental and Earth Sciences Proceedings (ISSN: 3042-5743), please submit it after the conference.
Authors are asked to disclose that it is a proceeding paper of the IECF 2026 conference paper in their cover letter. Carefully read the rules outlined in the 'Instructions for Authors' on the journal’s website and ensure that your submission adheres to these guidelines.
Proceedings submission deadline: 31 October 2026.
Manuscripts for the proceedings issue must be formatted as follows:
Please click HERE to submit your proceeding paper to Environmental and Earth Sciences Proceedings.
Title.
Full author names.
Affiliations (including full postal address) and authors' e-mail addresses.
Abstract.
Keywords.
Introduction.
Methods.
Results and Discussion.
Conclusions.
Acknowledgements.
References.
eesp_proceeding_paper-template.docx
Event Awards
To acknowledge the support of the conference's esteemed authors and recognize their outstanding scientific accomplishments, we are pleased to announce that the conference will provide 6 awards including Best Oral Presentation Award and Best Poster Award.
The Awards
Number of Awards Available: 6
The Best Oral Presentation Awards are given to the submission judged to make the most significant oral contribution to the conference.
The Best Poster Awards are given to the submission judged to make the most significant and interesting poster for the conference.
There will be six winners selected for these awards. The winner will receive a certificate and 200 CHF each.
Sponsors and Partners
For information regarding sponsorship and exhibition opportunities, please click here.
Organizers
Media Partners
Conference Secretariat
Ms. Vivien Zhang
Ms. Riley Liu
Ms. Ann Li
Email: iecf2026@mdpi.com
For inquiries regarding submissions and sponsorship opportunities, please feel free to contact us.
