Geospatial big data: theory, methods, and applications.

The editorial "Geospatial big data: theory, methods, and applications" discusses the emergence of geospatial big data, which encompasses large, diverse datasets with spatial components collected from various sources. The article highlights the challenges and opportunities in defining, collecting, analyzing, and visualizing geospatial big data, emphasizing the need for interdisciplinary exploration and ethical considerations. The special issue within the editorial presents seven articles focusing on novel methods to collect, process, and analyze geospatial big data for applications such as human activities, social interactions, disasters, health crises, and environmental predictions. The editorial concludes by addressing challenges related to geo-privacy, multimodal GeoAI, and scale issues in geospatial big data analysis, encouraging further research and innovation in the field. [Extracted from the article]