Trends in Geographic Information Science Discipline in The Era of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data

Geographic Information Science (GIS) serves as a technical tool for studying geography, remote sensing, and surveying and mapping science. Besides, GIS supports key applications such as environmental monitoring, resource management, and urban planning. As such, the continued development of GIS research is critical to advancing both the related research field and its practical applications. However, the complexity of geographic information presents significant challenges to existing modeling methods. Recently, the surge of data and the rapid progress of artificial intelligence (AI) technology have brought new ideas and opportunities for the development of GIS. Therefore, this paper systematically reviews the current research and emerging trends in the application of AI and big data within GIS, identifies key research issues and challenges ahead. The findings demonstrate that AI and big data have shown a positive and steady impact on GIS research. This work seeks to promote the integration of new technologies and methods in GIS, facilitating its further research and practice.