Innovative Geospatial Methods for Sustainable Infrastructure Development

Date: 

Thursday, December 9, 2021, 12:00pm

Location: 

Virtual

Presentation by Yongze Song, Ph.D.

View the presentation slides. | View a recording of this presentation.

Abstract: Rural and vulnerable population usually have to spend more time on collecting wood, cooking, boiling water, and feeding animals than others. This will lead to a series of issues of sustainable development, such as poverty, health and well-being, gender equality, inequality, and social engagement. The development of infrastructure systems, such as transport, energy, and water, is an effective approach to solve these problems and to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The global infrastructure needs have been increased in both developing and developed countries, and also have great potentials in the future. The sustainable infrastructure is designed, constructed, and maintained with socioeconomic and environmental considerations and it can perpetuate and enhance the environment. In our studies, we have developed geospatial data-driven methods, decision making and solutions for large-scale and sustainable infrastructure management. We desire to answer questions of what are the patterns of road performance, what are the factors affecting roads, how to predict future scenarios, and what are impacts of infrastructure. First, we developed spatial heterogeneity methods and implemented multi-source Earth observation data to explore geographical, environmental, climate, traffic, and pavement factors of road performance. Open source software packages were developed for performing the models and the software packages have been widely applied in exploring spatial factors in users’ studies. Next, we developed geospatial decision making models and spatial trade-off relation models for the in-depth understanding of road infrastructure performance from a spatial perspective. Finally, we investigated impacts of infrastructure on communities. Our case studies demonstrate the opportunities and potential solutions of geospatial methods and Earth observation for the sustainable infrastructure development.

Speaker Bio: Yongze Song, RGS Fellow, is a lecturer and doctorial supervisor at Curtin University, Australia. His research focuses on developing innovative geospatial methods for the assessment and management of sustainable infrastructure and sustainable development. He developed six R software packages with over 75,000 downloads globally for the geospatial methods and understanding spatial data. He published over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles, which include 35 Q1 journals. He is a recipient of twelve awards at international and national levels. He is an Editorial Board Member of journal “GIScience & Remote Sensing” and “Scientific Reports”, and Managing Guest Editor of “International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation”, “Remote Sensing”, and “Sustainable Earth“. He serves for over 30 peer-reviewed journals as a reviewer.

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