UN-SPIDER has released a new publication entitled "Mapping Disaster Resilience: GeoAI Best Practices from the UN-SPIDER Network".
The compendium compiles practical case studies on the use of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) to enhance disaster risk reduction and emergency response across diverse geographic and institutional contexts.
The compendium features selected case studies submitted by twenty-seven Regional Support Offices (RSOs) working across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. These examples highlight how GeoAI, is being used to forecast floods, map wildfire risk, assess landslide susceptibility, monitor droughts, and support emergency response. Each project demonstrates how cloud-based platforms and machine learning tools help governments act faster and more precisely when disaster strike.
Each submission was reviewed and selected based on technical merit, documented impact, and alignment with global goals like the Sendai Framework and the Sustainable Development Goals. All RSOs followed a standardized reporting format, making the practices easy to compare, replicate, and scale. Several projects report dramatic improvements in processing time and accuracy, with outputs that directly inform emergency planning, evacuation strategies, and recovery decisions.
In addition to presenting technical methodologies, the publication emphasizes inclusion, local capacity building, and ethical data use. It reflects a growing shift toward real time risk forecasting, open science collaboration, and equitable access to space-based tools for disaster resilience. This aligns with UN-SPIDER’s broader objective to support Member States in leveraging space-based information for the full disaster management cycle, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
The compendium was officially launched during the AI for Good Global Summit, organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva from 8 -11 July. It serves as both a technical reference and a resource to support operational uptake and policy dialogue on the use of artificial intelligence and satellite data for disaster resilience.
The publication is available for download on the UN-SPIDER Knowledge Portal: GeoAI Compendium
