From November 17 to 19, 2023, faculty and students from the Department of Earth System Science (DESS), Tsinghua University participated in the first National Information Geography Conference and the inaugural meeting of the Information Geography Committee of the Geographical Society of China (GSC) held in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. Professor Lu Hui and Professor Bai Yuqi from the DESS, Tsinghua University organized special forums on "Information Geography and Earth System Science" and "Geographic Information Service" respectively. Associate Professor Yu Le was invited to deliver a special report.

The rapid development of the information age has ushered in unprecedented opportunities for the development of geographical science. To further promote the research and development of information geography, the GSC decided to set up a professional committee on information geography and hold this conference, which was jointly sponsored by the GSC and the Suzhou University of Science and Technology, and aims to discuss “Chinese Geography in the Information Age”.

Group photo of teachers and students attending the conference

On November 19, Professor Lu Hui organized and presided over a special forum on "Information Geography and Earth System Science". Faculty and students from Tsinghua University, Beijing Normal University, the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the China University of Geology (Wuhan), Jianghan University, Lanzhou Jiaotong University and other universities exchanged ideas on remote sensing mapping, remote sensing inversion, meteorological data product development, eco-hydrological model development and application, among others.

Associate Professor Yu Le delivered a special lecture titled "Research on Land System Science and Sustainable Development Based on Information Geography Methodology" in the special forum of "Information Geography and Earth System Science". The report presented the latest progress of Yu Le's Research Group in the direction of land use mapping, introduced how to effectively use land use mapping to assist sustainable development research from the perspective of geometrics, and gave insight about the future development direction of land system science.

Professor Bai Yuqi delivered reports in three fields, namely information geography and earth system science, theory and method of geographic information, and geo-data center, titled "Research on data infrastructure in the field of earth system science", "Integration of geographic data-information-knowledge-decision: progress and prospect" and "Standard for geo-location model of ISO 19130-3 image sensor" respectively. In addition, on the topic of "geographic information service" organized by Prof. Bai, the guests at the conference held in-depth discussions on four themes: big model, national platform, application in major fields and development of international standards.

Lou Shuhan, Jiang Ruijie and Lin Ming (from top to bottom, and from left to right) deliver speeches .

Lou Shuhan, a Class 2019 doctoral student, Jiang Ruijie and Lin Ming, Class 2020 doctoral student from the DESS, Tsinghua University rendered academic reports at the sessions of Information Geography and Earth System Science, Information Geography and Sustainable Development, and Geographic Knowledge Map respectively.

Written by Jiang Ruijie, Lin Ming and Lou Shuhan

Edited by Wang Jiayin

Reviewed by Lu Hui, Bai Yuqi, Yu Le and Geng Rui