RSPP Call for Papers

Special Issue on New Landscape of Data and Sustainable Development in Asia

Data analysis plays a key role in shaping, designing, and evaluating regional policies that target sustainable development. Recent advances in information technology have contributed to a new landscape of unconventional data—mobile phones usage, online commercial transactions, social media, and biometrics—that are available in a multitude of formats, volumes, and spatial dimensions, with various degree of veracity and velocity, all with largely untapped potential. While the emergence of new data offers real-time insights from different perspectives for planning and policy analysis, it may require a different approach to extract previously unavailable information and use it to promote sustainability. The new analytical approaches and sources of data at the same time raise new security challenges, privacy concerns, and equity issues. Examining the pros and cons of the data revolution in the search for answers to previously unattainable research questions is thus of interest not only to academia but also to practitioners and policymakers.

The aim and scope of RSPP is to serve as a platform to address the interface between academic debates and policy development and application. The specific objective of this Special Issue is to promote discussions regarding the new landscape of data and its implications for sustainability. The Special Issue focuses particularly on Asia, where many cities, regions, and countries today are struggling to cope with the lack of infrastructure, climate change, rapid urbanization, land degradation, unstable political environments, deprivation, and the growing divide between those who have and do not have access to information. We invite papers that make use of new data sources and analysis to address challenges to sustainable development, broadly defined. We are interested in applied studies using regional science modes of analysis or other closely-related multidisciplinary approaches, as well as technical studies with implications for sustainability.

The Special Issue will be guest-edited by Yuri Mansury (Illinois Institute of Technology), Sutee Anantsuksomri (Chulalongkorn University), and Nij Tontisirin (Thammasat University).

Keywords and topics for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

• Artificial intelligence
• Big data analysis
• Computational modeling & simulation
• Information & Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure
• Land cover and land use
• Machine learning
• Networks
• Prediction
• Remote sensing
• Social media
• Spatial analysis
• Urbanization

Papers should be submitted to the regular review process of the journal (https://rsaiconnect.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17577802) until December 15 th of 2019.