Advances in Geo-Information Sciences for Urban Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

(1) Introduction, including scientific background and highlighting the importance of this research area.

Cities worldwide face growing challenges from rapid urbanization, climate change, environmental pressures, and rising demands for infrastructure and services. Addressing these issues is central to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, and is closely linked to broader global targets concerning health, infrastructure, inequality, climate action, and ecosystem protection.

Achieving urban sustainability requires a deeper understanding of the complex interactions among urban systems, natural systems, human activities, and socioeconomic processes across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Concurrently, geo-information science is rapidly evolving from conventional spatial data management toward intelligent, dynamic, and knowledge-driven urban analysis. Advances in Earth observation and remote sensing now enable large-scale, high-frequency, and automated urban information acquisition and updating. Meanwhile, digital twins, GeoAI, geospatial foundation models, large language models, knowledge graphs, and intelligent agents are enabling new capabilities in semantic understanding, simulation, prediction, and decision support.

Against this backdrop, “Advances in Geo-Information Sciences for Urban Sustainability” aims to highlight emerging theories, methods, and technologies that support urban monitoring, modeling, assessment, and intelligent decision-making. By bridging cutting-edge geo-information science with urban sustainability and the SDGs, this Special Issue seeks to introduce innovative approaches for understanding urban change, assessing sustainability, and supporting more adaptive and sustainable urban development.

(2) Aim of the Special Issue and how the subject relates to the journal scope.

This Special Issue aims to present recent theoretical, methodological, and technological advances in geo-information science that contribute to sustainable urban development and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

We welcome research that advances the acquisition, integration, modeling, and intelligent use of geospatial information for urban sustainability. Particular attention will be given to emerging approaches in Earth observation and multi-source sensing, multidimensional and spatiotemporal urban modeling, GeoAI, urban digital twins, geographic knowledge representation, and intelligent spatial analysis. These advances enable more effective monitoring and assessment of urban change, analysis of sustainability indicators, simulation of future scenarios, and evidence-based planning and decision-making.

The theme aligns closely with the scope of the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (IJGI), which emphasizes advances in geo-information science and their applications. By focusing on urban sustainability, this Special Issue seeks to promote interdisciplinary methods and transferable geospatial solutions for urban monitoring, analysis, planning, and decision-making, with particular relevance to SDG 11 and related SDGs.

(3) Suggested themes and article types for submissions.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Geospatial data acquisition, integration, and infrastructures: Earth observation, multi-source sensing, multimodal data fusion, spatial data infrastructures, interoperability, standards, and open geospatial data;
• Multidimensional and spatiotemporal urban modeling: 3D/4D city models, dynamic geographic entities, BIM–GIS/CIM integration, and integrated urban information models;
• GeoAI and intelligent geo-information processing: machine learning, deep learning, foundation models, generative AI, large geospatial models, knowledge graphs, and intelligent spatial reasoning;
• Urban digital twins, simulation, and prediction: real-time sensing, dynamic modeling, geosimulation, scenario analysis, visualization, and decision support;
• Geospatial analysis for sustainable urban development: land-use change, urban growth and regeneration, mobility and accessibility, infrastructure, resource and energy efficiency, and spatial planning;
• Urban environment, resilience, health, and equity: urban climate, air quality, carbon emissions, blue–green infrastructure, disaster risk, public health, environmental exposure, and spatial inequalities;
• Geospatial monitoring and assessment of the SDGs: sustainability indicators, localization of SDG targets, progress assessment, and analysis of synergies and trade-offs among SDGs;
• Responsible and participatory geo-information science: citizen science, volunteered geographic information, uncertainty, data quality, explainability, privacy, ethics, and governance.

The Special Issue welcomes original research articles, review papers, technical notes, and application-oriented studies. Contributions presenting transferable methods, open datasets, reproducible workflows, geospatial platforms, or decision-support tools are particularly encouraged.

Prof. Dr. Jie Jiang
Prof. Dr. Georg Gartner
Prof. Dr. Songnian Li
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. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 1900 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.