The 2030 Agenda for Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) has recognized the urgent need to reduce the risk of disasters in a changing climate. As a core development strategy, 10 of the 17 SDGs with 25 targets are identified related to disaster risk reduction (DRR).

A pathway to scale up efforts to meet the demand of vulnerable cities to enhance resilience in the face of growing hazards from an exposure of natural disasters and climate change, both well aligned with and supporting the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (SFDRR2030). Global policy instruments, e.g. SDGs and SFDRR interlinkages made DRR as a cross-cutting issue in the SDGs. SFDRR2030 is a 15-year, voluntary, non-binding agreement, with seven targets and four priorities for action. DRR, as an integral part of social and economic development, is a critical factor if development is to be sustainable for the near future.

Given extreme climate, rapid urbanization, and environmental degradation, it is crucial for us to better cope the disaster capacity, assessing our increased exposure and vulnerability to natural hazards and evaluating disaster risk in a quantitative manner. This platform urges the need for smart innovation and cross-sectoral partnership, linked to practice and diverse stakeholders to support the evidence based decision-making for reducing current risk and prevent future disaster risk in a changing climate.

The International Conference on Geomatics & Geospatial Technology (GGT) 2018 has the overall aim of bringing together stakeholders, decision makers, policy makers, prominent figure, leading academicians, scientists, researchers and the public to explicitly discuss and advance our understanding on disatser risk in a changing environment. It provides the premier multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary forum for public, private sector and scientists to interactively discuss any pressing issues, challenges, problems and possible solutions.

Time has come for binding more prominence on pre-disaster action rather than post-disaster reaction. It is necessary to promote disaster science into action initiatives in reducing disaster risk. It is imperative to establish persistent policy, institutional and methodological framework with the support of geospatial intelligence data for a comprehensive disaster risk analysis, assessment and reduction. Disaster-based geospatial information governance, infrastructure and technology development will be critically addressed.

The International Conference on Geomatics & Geospatial Technology (GGT) 2018 provides an insight into an integrated smart geospatial solution, focusing business impact analysis incorporating advanced earth observation system and intelligent geo-information technology for assessing disaster risk. It laid forth the critical and practical framework towards better risk management and improve our understanding of earth dynamics in time and space.

A geospatial intelligent technology is a promising tool for solving an old problem, reducing current risk and preventing future disaster risk. An emerging disaster informatics system and advanced disaster-based geospatial information governance, infrastructure and technology development are in high demand to cope with complexity of future disaster. An integrated disaster research supported by multi-sectoral stakeholder’s engagement, expert and traditional knowledge domain are highlighted in this international conference.

Understanding disaster risk is an important element in making our cities more resilient. For example, Malaysia is expecting the urbanization rate up to 85% in 2040 with a population reaching about 46 million. Given urban development pressure, extreme climate and environmental degragation, the number of disasters is increasing with a large number of victims, casualties, and damaged infrastracture. Therefore, there is a critical need to quantify the underlying risk drivers, root causes, to analyze disaster preparedness and to build an urban community resilient in disaster vulnerable regions.

Modern and advanced geospatial technologies have great potential to help in providing accurate up-to-date topographic data, dynamic land-use-land-cover changes, anthropogenic activities, and elements-at-risk, which lead to the improvement of inventory, susceptibility, and hazard map production. It subsequently improves the understanding of triggering factors and root causes for better assessing vulnerability and associated risk. Advancement of satellite data (positioning, earth observation, and communication) coupling with GIS-oriented modelling and Big Data analytics-based sophisticated algorithms on machine and deep-learning techniques made the processing, analysis, and assessment performed in real-time with high accuracy and efficiency.

The International Conference on Geomatics & Geospatial Technology (GGT) 2018 also addresses the solution-oriented knowledge as a result of multi-discipline centric approaches in dealing with complex multi-hazard and disaster risk. This session puts forth a comprehensive methodological-, and operational framework, and future direction of state-of-the-art technology for mapping, monitoring and assessing hill-slope geomorphological, fluvial geomorphology, and tectonic geomorphological process-response system. It highlights integrated disaster research, stakeholder’s engagement and knowledge domain for supporting trans-disciplinary disaster solution and building disaster smart resilient society.

Geospatial communities have been significantly contributing to the sustainable development. The geomatic and geospatial technology is very promising to reduce disaster risk, build a resilient future, and achieve the goals and targets through the implementation of both the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sendai Framework. It highlights an urgent need of transdisciplinary approach for building disaster resilient and science-based decision making process for addressing complexity of future disaster and climate risk. This event provides an insight into future engagement of geospatial players with multi-sectoral government agencies, stakeholders, and vulnerable communities on disaster and climate risk.