DOI: 10.20935/acadai8465 ISSN: 3071-0286

Dilemmas of humanitarian geospatial artificial intelligence

Melinda Laituri
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Humanitarianism is increasingly shaped by the convergence of environmental change, conflict, urbanization, displacement, and public health emergencies. At the same time, advances in geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) are transforming the collection, analysis, and application of geospatial information for humanitarian responses. This paper presents a SALSA-based (Search, Appraisal, Synthesis, Analysis) integrative review examining the intersections of GeoAI, humanitarian action, environmental justice, infrastructure, and governance. Eighty publications, including twelve comprehensive review articles, were examined to identify major research themes, applications, and emerging challenges. The review demonstrates that Humanitarian GeoAI extends beyond technical innovation to encompass interconnected dimensions of infrastructure, analytical methods, humanitarian applications, and environmental justice, ethics, and governance. These findings are synthesized into a conceptual framework illustrating how geospatial infrastructures enable GeoAI methods, which support humanitarian applications and generate outcomes requiring ethical oversight and governance. The analysis identifies two cross-cutting challenges: the humanitarian–military dual-use dilemma, in which shared data, infrastructures, and analytical systems support both humanitarian and military objectives, and the privacy–safety dilemma, where efforts to protect vulnerable populations may simultaneously increase exposure to surveillance and harm. Future advances in autonomous GIS, generative artificial intelligence, and digital twins are likely to further reshape humanitarian practice. This review demonstrates that the future of Humanitarian GeoAI depends not only on technological innovation but also on governance frameworks capable of promoting environmental justice, accountability, and the protection of vulnerable populations.

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