Towards effective application of geospatial technologies for disaster management

This article provides an overview of the application of geospatial technologies for disaster and emergency management; themotivebehind this special issue is focusingon the importanceofhighlighting theefforts of geospatial technologies community in the field of disaster and emergency management. This issue provides an insight on the future directions of geospatial technologies for disaster management. It starts with presenting the process of formalization of the idea behind this special issue, presenting the themes covered in this issue; summary statistics related to the submittedpapers. The article provides anoverview of the current state-of-the-art of geospatial technologies for disaster management with emphasis on GIS and the emerging web and mobile services. This editorial presents as much comprehensive user view of research directions from applications and applications development. This editorial concludes by providing a vision for geospatial technologies for disaster management and emergency response and briefly overview the content of this special issue.