Is Remote Sensing Predatory? MDPI Journal Verdict

MDPI's Beall's list history (2014-2015, removed after appeal) creates background suspicion. Finland downgraded 193 MDPI journals to Level 0 in late 2025. Norway has been critical of MDPI broadly. These publisher-level events, combined with MDPI's aggressive email solicitations, drive the "is it predatory?" searches.

Remote Sensing also has a unique history. In July 2011, it published a controversial climate-skeptic paper by Roy Spencer and Danny Braswell that challenged mainstream climate models. The paper drew immediate and intense criticism from climate scientists. Founding editor Wolfgang Wagner (Vienna University of Technology) resigned in September 2011, stating the paper was fundamentally flawed and should not have passed peer review. He took personal responsibility for the editorial failure.

This incident matters for two reasons. First, it shows peer review can fail at this journal, as it can at any journal. Second, the public resignation and accountability are the opposite of what you would see at a predatory publisher. Predatory publishers do not acknowledge editorial failures because they do not have real editorial processes to fail.

The journal was founded in 2009. After Wagner's resignation, Prasad S. Thenkabail of the USGS became editor-in-chief and has led the journal since, alongside co-editor-in-chief Dongdong Wang (University of Maryland). The editorial board includes over 600 geoscience researchers from departments, space agencies, and remote sensing laboratories worldwide.

Its Impact Factor is 4.1, 5-year IF is 4.8, CiteScore is 8.3, SJR is 1.019, h-index is 217. It ranks Q1 in Geosciences (Multidisciplinary) and Imaging Science on JCR, and Q1 in Earth and Planetary Sciences on Scopus. The acceptance rate is approximately 36% (based on 2019 data: 3,047 published from 8,381 submitted), making it considerably more selective than many MDPI journals. Annual output is 4,000-6,000 articles. The APC is CHF 2,700.

Remote Sensing benefits from being one of MDPI's better-run journals. Its acceptance rate is well below the MDPI average. Its editor-in-chief has been in place for over 14 years, providing editorial continuity. Its metrics are among the strongest in the MDPI portfolio.

Clarivate delisted two MDPI journals (IJERPH and JRFM) in 2023 and suppressed some impact factors in 2024 for citation manipulation. Remote Sensing was not affected in either case. China's CAS Early Warning List flagged some MDPI journals in 2020-2024 but has since removed all MDPI titles.

The risk is the MDPI model, not the journal's fundamentals.

Like all MDPI journals, Remote Sensing relies heavily on special issues managed by guest editors. In 2022, 88% of all MDPI articles appeared in special issues (since reduced to 55%). With submissions growing 48% year-over-year (2019 data), maintaining editorial standards across potentially hundreds of simultaneous special issues is the central challenge. Quality depends on the individual guest editor.

A 2019 analysis found that Remote Sensing had an intra-MDPI citation rate of 47.56%, meaning nearly half of its citations came from other MDPI publications. High self-citation does not necessarily indicate manipulation - researchers in niche fields naturally cite work from the same journals - but 47.56% is high enough to suggest citation metrics may be somewhat inflated by publisher-level patterns.

Review speed (approximately 19 days to first decision, 39 days total to publication) is fast for a field covering complex topics like hyperspectral imaging, LiDAR analysis, and satellite data processing. For context, traditional geoscience journals typically take 2-4 months for first decision and 6-12 months for total publication.

The better question is where Remote Sensing fits in the geoscience hierarchy. If your paper could target Remote Sensing of Environment (IF 11.1), ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (IF 12.2), or IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (IF 8.6), those venues carry stronger selectivity signals and society backing.

If you need fast open-access publication with Q1 indexing and the IF fits, Remote Sensing is a legitimate venue with an acceptance rate more selective than many MDPI titles. Prefer regular issue submissions over special issues when possible, and vet the guest editor if submitting to a special issue.

If your institution uses Finland's JUFO system, publication here earns minimal credit. Check whether your hiring committee or grant panel views MDPI favorably.

For researchers reading or citing Remote Sensing papers, check whether the paper came from a regular issue or special issue. Regular issues go through the journal's standard editorial pipeline. For special issue papers, look at the guest editor - are they a recognized expert in the topic, and have they published excessively in their own issue?

Remote sensing papers should include validation against ground truth data or established benchmarks. A journal name does not substitute for methodological rigor. Check the review timeline - Remote Sensing offers optional open peer review, and if reports are published, they provide useful context on the scrutiny the paper received.

Remote Sensing is not predatory. It has Q1 indexing, a credible editorial team led by a USGS scientist, and an acceptance rate around 36% that is more selective than the MDPI average. The 2011 Spencer-Braswell affair was an editorial failure, not a predatory practice, and the founding editor's resignation demonstrated real accountability. The standard MDPI concerns - special issues, review speed, self-citation patterns - apply, but this journal's individual track record is stronger than most in the portfolio.

For the full picture on MDPI as a publisher, see our MDPI predatory assessment. To evaluate whether your manuscript fits Remote Sensing, try a manuscript readiness check.

In our pre-submission review work with manuscripts targeting Remote Sensing, three specific failure patterns generate the most consistent problems for authors. We observe these most often in papers that are legitimate remote-sensing submissions but weak as reputation-sensitive career signals.

Application papers without methodological contribution. Remote Sensing publishes across remote sensing, GIS, and Earth observation, but the editors increasingly distinguish between papers that advance a method and papers that simply apply an existing method to a new study area. We've reviewed manuscripts that use random forest classification on Landsat imagery for land cover mapping in a new region, with no algorithmic innovation, no comparison against recent deep learning baselines, and no insight beyond "we mapped land cover here." These papers may get accepted through special issues with lenient guest editors, but they accumulate fewer citations and weaken the author's portfolio signal.

Validation gaps in accuracy assessment. Remote Sensing's author guidelines require "a rigorous accuracy assessment" for classification and mapping studies. In practice, papers that report overall accuracy without per-class metrics, that use training data for validation without independent test sets, or that skip comparison against established benchmarks get flagged by reviewers. We've seen papers with 95% overall accuracy that hid a 30% producer's accuracy on the class that actually mattered. Reviewers at this journal check confusion matrices carefully.

Special issue submissions without vetting the guest editor. Because Remote Sensing relies heavily on special issues (55% of articles as of recent data, down from 88% in 2022), the quality of peer review varies significantly by guest editor. We've reviewed papers where the author received a 10-day review turnaround with superficial comments, and other papers in the same journal where review took 8 weeks with detailed technical feedback. Before submitting to a special issue, check the guest editor's publication record and whether they've published excessively in their own issue.

Before submitting, a Remote Sensing validation and methodology check can flag whether your accuracy assessment, baselines, and methodological contribution are strong enough for the review process.

Publish in Remote Sensing if:

• You need fast open-access publication with Q1 indexing in geosciences
• Your work fits the remote sensing / Earth observation scope and you don't have a stronger venue lined up
• You're submitting to a regular issue (not a special issue from an unfamiliar guest editor)
• Your institution or funding body doesn't penalize MDPI publications

Consider alternatives if:

• Your paper could realistically target Remote Sensing of Environment (IF 11.1), ISPRS Journal (IF 12.2), or IEEE TGRS (IF 8.6), these carry stronger selectivity signals
• Your institution uses Finland's JUFO system, where Remote Sensing currently sits at Level 0
• You're on the job market or up for tenure at a department that views MDPI skeptically
• You'd be submitting to a special issue where you can't vet the guest editor's track record

Last verified: April 2026 against Clarivate JCR 2024, Scopus metrics.

Before submitting to Remote Sensing, a Remote Sensing scope and special issue risk check can verify whether your methodological contribution and validation meet the standard for a regular issue submission.