The international symposium on remote sensing 2018 (ISRS 2018) was held in Pyeongchang, Korea, 9–11 May 2018. This symposium has been held in Korea since 1994, and since 2012 it has been officially co-organized by Korean Society of Remote Sensing (KSRS), the Chinese (Taipei) Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (CSPRS), the Remote Sensing Society of Japan (RSSJ), and the Standing Committee of Environmental Monitoring from Space of East Asia (EMSEA) and has become a special event for the remote sensing field in East Asia. This symposium is a premier symposium that provides all participants with invaluable opportunities to catch up on state-of-the art techniques and the latest developments in remote sensingand provides a platform for sharing new ideas and information with colleagues and young scholars engaged in similar studies, research, or activities. During the 2018 symposium, there were 39 sessions with a total of 258 papers (156 orals, 102 posters). Among these papers, 123 oral papers were assigned to 31 general sessions on various aspects of remote sensing, from systems including microwave and optical sensors, to land, ocean, atmosphere, and cryosphere applications. In addition, 33 oral papers were presented in the workshop on “Advanced Technology for Satellite-based Water Resources Management” by the K-water, as well as six Special Sessions, which included one session on “Advanced Environmental Management using Environmental Spatial Information and Remote Sensing” by the Ministry of Environment, four sessions on" Geostationary Ocean Color Mission" organized by the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST), and, finally, one session on “KOMPSAT Applications” by the Korea Aerospace and Research Institute (KARI).

This Special Issue on Selected Papers from the “International Symposium on Remote Sensing 2018” in Remote Sensing was planned in conjunction with ISRS 2018 and includes peer-reviewed feature papers presented at ISRS 2018. The ISRS 2018 conference papers were fleshed out with more detailed presentations of the research and also additional data sets and comparisons in enhanced experimental sections. Finally, eighteen papers that reflect the topics of interest for this special issue have been accepted for publication in this special issue of Remote Sensing.