AI in Disaster, Crisis, and Emergency Management

Dear Colleagues,

Recent years have witnessed a significant increase in disasters from a variety of sources, including meteorological and hydrological, geological, extraterrestrial, environmental, biological, chemical, technological and societal hazards, which have caused enormous damage to human lives, infrastructure and the economy. Specific examples of these hazards include but are not limited to earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, riverine floods, heatwaves, biodiversity loss, wildfires, bacteria, viruses, parasites, venomous animals and mosquitoes carrying disease-causing agents, infectious disease, corrosive, flammable and toxic chemicals, cyber-attacks and violence and conflict. In such scenarios, emergency management plays a critical role in reducing the impact of disasters and saving lives. With the advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, there is a growing interest in leveraging AI for emergency management to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and accuracy in disaster mitigation, preparedness, emergency response and recovery operations. This Special Issue aims to bring together cutting-edge research on the application of AI in emergency management.

This Special Issue welcomes original research papers and review articles on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• AI-powered safety, security, disaster, crisis and emergency events analysis, including historical and big data analysis;
• AI-enabled climate extreme events, disaster risk assessment and early warning systems;
• AI-enabled public health emergency management including COVID-19;
• AI-based emergency response planning and decision making;
• AI-assisted real-time situational awareness and monitoring;
• AI-driven resource allocation and optimization in emergency management;
• AI-powered prediction and mitigation of disasters and their impact;
• AI-supported public communication and social media analysis during emergencies;
• AI-augmented human-robot collaboration in emergency response;
• AI-powered autonomous systems for search and rescue operations;
• AI-enhanced post-disaster assessment and recovery planning;
• AI-enabled disaster and business continuity management including education continuity operations;
• Ethical and social implications of AI in emergency management.

Dr. Sufi Faheim
Dr. Alam Edris
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Electronics 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.