COVID-19 has quickly become a pandemic that has affected the whole world. Not only is it restricting activities in our normal life, it is also leading us to think about how we can respond collectively to this global crisis.
For a long time, research on public health has recognized that big Earth data technologies, such as remote sensing, GIS and GPS, together with citizen-science technologies, have the ability to support epidemic monitoring, response and recovery. Public health can make use of big Earth data that has been acquired from diverse sources, ranging from satellite imagery to mobile telematics and volunteered geographical information.
Big Earth Data is an interdisciplinary open access academic journal that is jointly published by the International Society for Digital Earth, the Aerospace Information Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Taylor & Francis. Big Earth Data is the world's first big data journal in the Earth sciences, and aims to provide an efficient and high-quality platform for promoting 'big data' sharing, processing and analysis, thereby revolutionizing the cognition of the Earth's systems. The journal publishes original research articles, review articles, data papers and technical notes on ‘big data’ studies across the entire spectrum of Earth sciences.
We are now calling for submissions that address the opportunities for and challenges related to the use of big Earth data implementation in public health research and practice. Contributions that explore the links between COVID-19 and environmental and public health, as well as the multiple impacts that changes in human behavior have had on the Earth, are particularly encouraged. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to contribute manuscripts or organize a special issue on a related aspect to this research topic.
We trust that our community will give a positive response to this urgent call in order to help the whole of society.
