applsci-logo

Journal Browser

Journal Browser

Geospatial Insights: Unleashing the Power of Big Data and GeoAI, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Computing and Artificial Intelligence".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 July 2025 | Viewed by 605

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Data Science Institute, German Aerospace Center (DLR), 07745 Jena, Germany
Interests: GeoAI; VGI; geoparsing; indoor mapping and localization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Department of Geography, University of Lincoln, Lincoln LN6 7TS, UK
Interests: remote sensing AI; GeoAI; quantitative human geography; sensing mobility and activity; geospatial big data analytics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In today's rapidly changing world of geospatial sciences, combining geospatial big data and geographic artificial intelligence (GeoAI) is reshaping how we conduct scientific research and transforming practical applications in various fields. Geospatial big data, gathered from satellites, sensors, social media, citizen input, and various sources, provide an enormous amount of spatial information. Additionally, GeoAI, which combines artificial intelligence with geospatial analysis, offers innovative methods for understanding this vast data landscape. An essential component of GeoAI is the use of large language models (LLMs), enhancing natural language understanding within the geospatial domain. These models facilitate smooth communication between complex data patterns and human understanding.

This Special Issue delves into innovative approaches in geospatial big data and GeoAI, emphasizing data integration and advanced artificial intelligence techniques like large language models. Similar to the focus on natural products, our discussions center on modern geospatial methods and technologies, validated through practical applications in real-world scenarios.

This Research Topic welcomes original research papers and review papers offering new insights into geospatial big data and GeoAI. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Harvesting geospatial information from diverse data sources;
  • Harnessing AI for geospatial solutions across various fields;
  • Multi-source data fusion for enhanced geospatial analysis;
  • Enhancing disaster response through satellite imagery and social media data integration;
  • Natural language processing in geospatial data interpretation;
  • Semantic understanding in geospatial analysis using LLMs;
  • Enhanced spatial query systems with large language models;
  • GeoAI-driven sentiment analysis from social media texts;
  • LLMs in geospatial knowledge graph construction;
  • Interactive geospatial visualization with language-driven interfaces;
  • Geospatial question answering systems using large language models.

Dr. Shaohua Wang
Dr. Xuke Hu
Dr. Yeran Sun
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • geospatial big data
  • GeoAI
  • large language models
  • geospatial analysis
  • social media data
  • remote sensing
  • VGI

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

16 pages, 4317 KiB  
Article
UniU-Net: A Unified U-Net Deep Learning Approach for High-Precision Areca Palm Segmentation in Remote Sensing Imagery
by Shaohua Wang, Yan Wang, Jianwei Yue, Haojian Liang, Zihan Zhang and Bojun Li
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(9), 4813; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15094813 - 26 Apr 2025
Viewed by 209
Abstract
This study introduces a novel deep learning-based model, UniU-Net, designed to achieve the high-precision segmentation of areca palms in remote sensing imagery. UniU-Net incorporates an auxiliary encoder and a unified attention fusion module (UAFM), enhancing the model’s anti-overfitting capabilities to improve its overall [...] Read more.
This study introduces a novel deep learning-based model, UniU-Net, designed to achieve the high-precision segmentation of areca palms in remote sensing imagery. UniU-Net incorporates an auxiliary encoder and a unified attention fusion module (UAFM), enhancing the model’s anti-overfitting capabilities to improve its overall segmentation performance. Specifically, the primary and auxiliary encoders, through isomorphic parallel processing, leverage the principles of structural reparameterization to enhance the model’s effective learning of areca palm features while reducing the risk of overfitting. The UAFM utilizes a spatial attention mechanism to facilitate the effective fusion of multi-scale features. This architecture enables the model to capture intricate morphological details and accurately delineate the boundaries of areca palms, even under complex and heterogeneous environmental conditions such as mixed vegetation and varying illumination. To validate the effectiveness of UniU-Net, comprehensive experiments were conducted on a specialized areca palm dataset, demonstrating superior performance compared to several state-of-the-art semantic segmentation models. The proposed method achieves significant improvements in key evaluation metrics, such as the F1-score and intersection over union (IoU), highlighting its robustness and precision in automated areca palm extraction tasks. The integration of advanced attention mechanisms not only enhances the model’s ability to focus on relevant regions but also improves the segmentation accuracy in challenging scenarios. Beyond the specific application of areca palm segmentation, the methodologies introduced in this study hold substantial practical significance for broader agricultural applications, such as precision farming and crop monitoring. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop