Biographical Sketch

Hamdi Zurqani, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Geospatial Science in Natural Resource Management and Conservation at the University of Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, Arkansas Forest Resources Center, University of Arkansas at Monticello, Monticello, AR, USA. He is also an FAA (i.e., Pt107) Certified sUAS/Drones Pilot and has used this skill to enhance his knowledge of remote sensing and GIS. Dr. Zurqani is a recognized expert as a result of his internationally acclaimed work in the areas of environmental information science, remote sensing, geospatial analysis, land evaluation, sustainability, pedology, and soil science education. He has conducted research across the world, including the United States of America and Africa, and has served as PI, co-PI, or co-investigator on several grants-funded research projects. Dr. Zurqani is highly collaborative, as evidenced by his publications. He is the author and co-author of many peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and technical publications (including teaching laboratory manuals). He also edited three books with Springer Nature (i.e., "Environmental Applications of Remote Sensing and GIS in Libya", "The Soils of Libya", and "Water Resources of Libya: Challenges and Management"), and has published widely in many peer-reviewed journals (e.g., International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation (Elsevier); Remote Sensing in Earth Systems Sciences (Springer Nature); Scientific Reports (Nature); Frontiers in Environmental Science (Frontiers); Geoderma (Elsevier); Land (MDPI); Urban Forestry & Urban Greening (Elsevier), and others).

Dr. Zurqani is a member of the Editorial Board for Remote Sensing (MDPI) Journal and Al-Mukhtar Journal of Sciences, counseling outcome, and research evaluation. He was also appointed to serve as a Guest Editor for several Research Topics/Special Issues in various journals. These issues include "Advancing spatial prediction of soil properties using remotely sensed data and geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI): Challenges, opportunities, and future directions" in the Frontiers in Soil Science Pedometrics (Frontiers) journal (ISSN 2673-8619), "UAV Agricultural Management: Recent Advances and Future Prospects" in the Remote Sensing (MDPI) journal (ISSN 2072-4292) and Drones (MDPI) journal (ISSN 2504-446X), and "Applications of Remote Sensing in Earth Observation and Geo-Information Science" in the Remote Sensing (MDPI) journal (ISSN 2072-4292). In addition, Dr. Zurqani conducted peer reviews for many publishers, including Springer Nature, Nature, Frontiers, Elsevier, MDPI, and others. He reviewed articles for journals such as Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, Geo-spatial Information Science, Journal of Environmental Informatics, Applied Sciences, SN Applied Sciences, Remote Sensing, AgriEngineering, Sensors, Heliyon, Geosciences, Land, Soil Systems, Water, Agronomy, Agriculture, Resources, Sustainability, Arid Land Research and Management, Quaestiones Geographiceae, Geocarto International, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Natural Hazards, Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk, Agricultural Water Management, Applied Artificial Intelligence, International Journal of Digital Earth and Conference of the Arabian Journal of Geosciences.

Dr. Zurqani conducts cutting-edge research in the fields of Environmental Information Science, Remote Sensing, Land use management/ planning, change detection of landscape degradation, and Geographic Information System (GIS) models. He has focused his research efforts on the development of novel applications for new technologies in analyzing spatial data, remote sensing, geostatistical modeling of environmental changes such as erosion, mapping and predicting soil salinity, and land use/ land cover changes. His new publications include: "Mapping and Quantifying Agricultural Irrigation in Heterogeneous Landscapes Using Google Earth Engine" in the Journal of Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment; "Evaluating the integrity of forested riparian buffers over a large area using LiDAR data and Google Earth Engine" in the Journal of Scientific Reports; "Mapping Urbanization Trends in a Forested Landscape Using Google Earth Engine" in the Journal of Remote Sensing in Earth Systems Sciences; "Geospatial analysis of land use change in the Savannah River Basin using Google Earth Engine" in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation; and "Application of Non-Hydraulic Delineation Method of Flood Hazard Areas Using LiDAR-Based Data" as well as "Assessing ecosystem services of atmospheric calcium and magnesium deposition for potential soil inorganic carbon sequestration" in the Geosciences Journal.