Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science in Geography
A special issue of Geomatics (ISSN 2673-7418).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2027 | Viewed by 265
Special Issue Editors
Interests: geographic information science; remote sensing and earth observation (EO); artificial intelligence for EO; spatial databases military geography; VGI; citizen science
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: geographic information science; geoinformatics; geographic information systems; cartography; geodemography; VGI; geoarchaeology; spatial analysis in physical geography and human geography; modeling of natural phenomena and disasters; citizen science
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: cartography; web mapping; geovisualization; volunteered geographic information; ethics in cartography; cartographic generalization; citizen science
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: geographic information science; geoinformatics; geographic information systems; cartography; spatial epidemiology; geoarchaeology; spatial analysis; VGI; citizen science
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The evolution of geospatial technologies, web-based mapping platforms, and mobile devices has fundamentally transformed how geographic information is produced, shared, and applied. Early developments in crowdsourcing and citizen science introduced new paradigms within geomatics, enabling non-experts to actively contribute to data collection, validation, and spatial knowledge generation. While many of the foundational challenges from these early efforts—such as data quality, reliability, and interoperability—remain highly relevant, the field is now undergoing a profound shift driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and the emergence of agentic and generative AI systems. In this new landscape, citizen-generated geospatial data plays an increasingly critical role as training, validation, and feedback data for intelligent systems. From volunteered geographic information (VGI) to real-time environmental monitoring and crisis mapping, human contributions and machine intelligence are becoming deeply interconnected in shaping dynamic and scalable geospatial knowledge.
This Special Issue, “Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science in Geography,” aims to explore this evolving intersection between participatory approaches and advanced computational paradigms. It invites contributions on topics such as data quality and trustworthiness in AI-enabled workflows, integration of citizen-generated data with Earth observation and GIS, the use of crowdsourced data in training and evaluating AI/ML models, and innovative applications across climate resilience, urban systems, public health, and disaster management. Submissions addressing ethical considerations, data governance, interoperability, and the responsible use of participatory data within automated and semi-automated decision-making processes are particularly encouraged. By bridging enduring challenges with emerging technological opportunities, this Issue seeks to advance both the theoretical foundations and practical applications of participatory geospatial science in the era of intelligent systems.
Dr. Vyron Antoniou
Dr. Kleomenis Kalogeropoulos
Dr. Andriani Skopeliti
Prof. Dr. Andreas Tsatsaris
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-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Geomatics 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 1200 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
- crowdsourcing
- citizen science
- volunteered geographic information (VGI)
- participatory GIS (PGIS)
- geospatial data quality
- spatial data infrastructure (SDI)
- remote sensing integration
- web GIS and mobile mapping
- community-based monitoring
- open geospatial data
- disaster mapping
- environmental monitoring
- urban analytics
- spatial big data
- geospatial training data
- AI/ML, AI agents and GenAI
- geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI)
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