Geocarto International

The Open-Source Approach to Geospatial Applications: Progress and Prospects

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) has been transforming the landscape of Earth Observation, GIS, geoscience and environmental sciences. As the volume of geospatial data reach exabyte scales, the need for transparent, reproducible, and scalable processing pipelines becomes crucial to make sense of these data. Based on interoperability and community-driven development, the "Open-source approach" provides a robust framework for addressing complex spatial challenges, while ensuring that cutting-edge geospatial tools remain accessible to researchers, policy-makers, and the public globally.

The open-source approach in the geospatial sciences aligns with the principles of Open Science and reproducible research. As science is increasingly affected by the "Reproducibility Crisis", FOSS4G solutions provide a transparent foundation that allows for the rigorous, independent validation of results (models, simulations, etc.) and promote innovation through competition and technology knowledge transfer. By making the source code accessible, FOSS4G tools foster a culture of collective problem-solving and rapid iterative improvement. Furthermore, the cost-efficiency of open-source ecosystems are vital for bridging the digital divide by empowering diverse global communities to conduct geospatial analysis regardless of budget constraints.

This Article Collection will highlight how open-source innovation (software, data, and standards) drives technical efficiency, global equity, and evidence-based decision-making in modern, multidisciplinary geospatial science. Aligning with Geocarto International’s mission to serve the world-wide scientific and user community in the fields of Earth Observation, GIS, geoscience and environmental sciences, it will feature selected high-quality research from the academic track of the FOSS4G Europe 2026 conference, exploring the current state-of-the-art and future trajectories of open-source geospatial technologies.

While the FOSS4G Europe 2026 conference serves as the primary catalyst, we also welcome high-quality submissions from the broader community to ensure a comprehensive overview of the field. We encourage submissions that demonstrate innovative use of open-source tools in the abovementioned fields. Key subtopics include but are not limited to:

Cloud-native geospatial standards and architectures (e.g., COGs, STAC) research for environmental monitoring;
Open Standards for Geo-Spatial;
Open-source tools for satellite time series analysis;
Open standards and tools for geo-spatial data representation
Open-Source deep-learning tools and frameworks;
Foundation Models in Geosciences;
Participatory mapping and Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) systems

Article Collection Guest Advisors

Lucian Drăguț is currently a Professor in the Department of Geography at the West University of Timișoara (UVT), bringing over 30 years of international experience in teaching and research across Europe, North America, and Asia. Lucian’s general research topics cover geomorphometry and image segmentation. His work includes automated mapping of landforms and landform elements from Digital Elevation Models, as well as methods for estimating the scale parameter in multi-scale image segmentation of remotely sensed imagery. Lucian is the author of over 90 scientific publications, which have been cited more than 13000 times. Currently, he coordinates the MSc program in Geographic Information Systems and serves as a Ph.D. supervisor at UVT.

Evelyn Uuemaa is a Professor of Geoinformatics at the University of Tartu and leads the Landscape Geoinformatics Lab. She works at the intersection of geography, geoinformatics, and environmental science. Her research centers on applying geospatial analysis and machine learning to understand landscape processes and environmental change. She has contributed extensively to the application of spatial machine learning, remote sensing, and GIS in modelling environmental variables such as nutrient loads, soil properties, and carbon dynamics. Her work also covers geospatial data quality, large-scale spatial data processing, and the integration of diverse geospatial datasets for environmental monitoring and decision-making.
She is leading the Centre of Excellence of Sustainable Land Use and holds an ERC Consolidator grant which both focus on using geospatial machine learning for mapping environmental change more efficiently.

Marian Neagul is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute eAustria Timișoara who earned his B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the West University of Timișoara. His primary research interests include machine learning, distributed systems, and cloud computing, with a recent focus on Earth Observation (EO) applications and platform orchestration. He has contributed to several high-profile European research projects, such as FP7 mOSAIC, H2020 CloudLightning, and AI4Europe, exploring areas from self-organizing clouds to digital preservation. As a result of these collaborations, he has co-authored over a dozen research papers within his fields of expertise. Additionally, Marian is actively involved in international standardization efforts with the ESA and OGC, specifically regarding EO processing specifications and exploitation platforms.

Further Information

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review;  only those Guest Advisors who are Editorial Board Members will be handling the manuscripts. Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 31 January 2027. Please contact Alex Johnson at [email protected] with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.

Please be sure to select the appropriate Article Collection from the drop-down menu in the submission system. Failure to select the appropriate Article Collection may result in delays.