Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk

The global urbanization process requires more than ever the development of innovative and holistic approaches to make cities smart, sustainable, and resilient to geological hazards and to extreme events induced by climate changes. Earth’s population is expected to increase from 7 billion to over 9 billion by 2050, by which time more than 70% of the global population will be concentrated in megacities and increasingly exposed to the potentially overlapping threats posed by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, floods, and many other geohazards.

The great acceleration of this process appears irreversible, and policymakers cannot postpone the adoption of novel strategies for better evaluating and reducing the impact of geological hazards on cities and civil infrastructures. Decision-makers and the scientific community must cooperate to anticipate this social and economic challenge, in tandem with United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.

The main goal of the Article Collection is therefore to present and share the more advanced methodologies for geohazard and multi-geohazard monitoring and assessment in urban areas. Particular attention will be devoted to the recent advances in satellite remote sensing, airborne and drone geophysics, geophysical subsurface sensing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, and digital twinning of urban environments in line with the Digital Earth initiative.

The Article Collection is intended as a means of disseminating and sharing the results of the more recent advances in Earth Observation, applied geophysics, and AI-based algorithms in multi-geohazards studies in urbanized environments. Original articles on both methodological aspects and applications will be accepted. Furthermore, studies concerning megacities located in developing countries are encouraged and welcomed.

The main topics of the Article Collection will be:

• Satellite remote sensing for geohazards and multi-geohazards monitoring in urban areas;
• Airborne and drone geophysics for the geological hazards analysis in the urbanized areas;
• No-invasive geophysical methods (e.g. seismic, electrical, and electromagnetic) for surface and subsurface sensing in urban environments;
• Satellite and geophysical methods for the surveillance of strategic civil infrastructures (e.g. bridges, tunnels, railways, energy pipelines, dams, etc.);
• Innovative sensors (e.g. fiber optics; MEMS) for distributed geophysical networks in urban areas;
• AI-based algorithms, machine learning, neural network, and other advanced statistical methods for geohazards and multi-geohazard analysis in urban areas;
• Digital twins of cities and strategic civil infrastructures.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 31st March 2024.

Please contact Alex Johnson at [email protected] with any queries regarding this Article Collection.

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article