Programme

Prof. Min Chen is Dean of the School of Geography and the Director of Key Lab of Virtual Geographic Environment (Ministry of Education of PRC). He now serves as the Chair of BOD of the International Association of Chinese Professionals in Geographic Information Science (CPGIS), Vice-President of International Environmental Modelling and Software Society (iEMSs), Chair of Modelling Geographic System Committee of International Geographical Union (IGU), Member of the Management Committee and Chair of the Young Scientist Innovation Network, International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE), Chair of Young Scientist Working Group in Asian Geographic Associate (AGA) etc. He is a Foreign Academician of Academia Europaea, a Fellow of International Environmental Modelling and Software Society, a Fellow of Association of American Geographers, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand, a Fellow of Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association. He has won the Top Prize of Progress award in Chinese Geographic Information Technology, 2021 Global Frontier Science and Technology Young Scientist, the ISDE Outstanding Young Scientist Award, Biennial Medal of iEMSs, “Waldo Tobler Young Researcher Award” in GIScience awarded by Austrian Academy of Sciences etc. He has led the construction of an Open Geographic Modelling and Simulation platform (OpenGMS), having established an international voice for Chinese researchers in the field of geographic modelling and simulation. His research results have been selected selected as top ten research advances in Chinese geographical science (2021, 2024) and top ten research advances of Chinese Society of Land Economics (2023, 2024).

Geographic modeling and simulation in the AI era

Understanding surface processes and human-Earth interactions is a core focus of geoscience. Geographic modeling and simulation are vital methods for exploring Earth surface processes and the human–Earth system. In fact, they have become research hotspots in modern geography and key drivers of breakthroughs in the Earth sciences. Open Geographic Modeling and Simulation (OpenGMS) is an open, web-distributed platform designed for collaborative geographic resource reuse and integration. To date, OpenGMS has assembled more than 4,500 model items and has received over 120,000 visits in the past three years. Contributors to the platform come from over 20 countries, including scholars from the University of Oxford, MIT, the University of Chicago, and the Australian National University (ANU). A critical question for geoscience in the AI era is how Earth science can remain true to its core values while achieving sustainable development. Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into Earth science offers promising new directions for the field’s growth and provides a paradigm for other disciplines to collaborate with AI. However, traditional process-oriented modeling and simulation methods—heavily reliant on expert experience—cannot meet the modern needs of geography, which now encompass big data analytics, large-scale model construction, and extensive knowledge discovery. To address these challenges, OpenGMS proposes an iterative and interactive intelligent modeling approach. This new approach defines a geographic modeling and simulation paradigm driven by both knowledge and data. In addition, OpenGMS has developed several intelligent geographic modeling systems with its own intellectual property rights. These systems are being used to explore integrated geoscience and AI models through intelligent modeling practices, which promote the development of new generation GIS for geographic analysis.