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\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n    MapQA: Open-domain Geospatial Question Answering on Map Data.\n  \n  \n  \n  \n\n\n  \n  Li, Z.; Grossman, M.; Qasemi, E.; Kulkarni, M.; Chen, M.;  and Chiang, Y.\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n  
arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.07871.  2025.\n  
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@article{li2025mapqa,\n  title={MapQA: Open-domain Geospatial Question Answering on Map Data},\n  author={Li, Zekun and Grossman, Malcolm and Qasemi, Eric and Kulkarni, Mihir and Chen, Muhao and Chiang, Yao-Yi},\n  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.07871},\n  year={2025},\n  url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.07871},\n  abstract={Geospatial question answering (QA) is a fundamental task in navigation and point of interest (POI) searches. While existing geospatial QA datasets exist, they are limited in both scale and diversity, often relying solely on textual descriptions of geo-entities without considering their geometries. A major challenge in scaling geospatial QA datasets for reasoning lies in the complexity of geospatial relationships, which require integrating spatial structures, topological dependencies, and multi-hop reasoning capabilities that most text-based QA datasets lack. To address these limitations, we introduce MapQA, a novel dataset that not only provides question-answer pairs but also includes the geometries of geo-entities referenced in the questions. MapQA is constructed using SQL query templates to extract question-answer pairs from OpenStreetMap (OSM) for two study regions: Southern California and Illinois. It consists of 3,154 QA pairs spanning nine question types that require geospatial reasoning, such as neighborhood inference and geo-entity type identification. Compared to existing datasets, MapQA expands both the number and diversity of geospatial question types. We explore two approaches to tackle this challenge: (1) a retrieval-based language model that ranks candidate geo-entities by embedding similarity, and (2) a large language model (LLM) that generates SQL queries from natural language questions and geo-entity attributes, which are then executed against an OSM database. Our findings indicate that retrieval-based methods effectively capture concepts like closeness and direction but struggle with questions that require explicit computations (e.g., distance calculations). LLMs (e.g., GPT and Gemini) excel at generating SQL queries for one-hop reasoning but face challenges with multi-hop reasoning, highlighting a key bottleneck in advancing geospatial QA systems.}\n}\n\n\n
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\n  Geospatial question answering (QA) is a fundamental task in navigation and point of interest (POI) searches. While existing geospatial QA datasets exist, they are limited in both scale and diversity, often relying solely on textual descriptions of geo-entities without considering their geometries. A major challenge in scaling geospatial QA datasets for reasoning lies in the complexity of geospatial relationships, which require integrating spatial structures, topological dependencies, and multi-hop reasoning capabilities that most text-based QA datasets lack. To address these limitations, we introduce MapQA, a novel dataset that not only provides question-answer pairs but also includes the geometries of geo-entities referenced in the questions. MapQA is constructed using SQL query templates to extract question-answer pairs from OpenStreetMap (OSM) for two study regions: Southern California and Illinois. It consists of 3,154 QA pairs spanning nine question types that require geospatial reasoning, such as neighborhood inference and geo-entity type identification. Compared to existing datasets, MapQA expands both the number and diversity of geospatial question types. We explore two approaches to tackle this challenge: (1) a retrieval-based language model that ranks candidate geo-entities by embedding similarity, and (2) a large language model (LLM) that generates SQL queries from natural language questions and geo-entity attributes, which are then executed against an OSM database. Our findings indicate that retrieval-based methods effectively capture concepts like closeness and direction but struggle with questions that require explicit computations (e.g., distance calculations). LLMs (e.g., GPT and Gemini) excel at generating SQL queries for one-hop reasoning but face challenges with multi-hop reasoning, highlighting a key bottleneck in advancing geospatial QA systems.\n
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\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n    Towards the next generation of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence.\n  \n  \n  \n  \n\n\n  \n  Mai, G.; Xie, Y.; Jia, X.; Lao, N.; Rao, J.; Zhu, Q.; Liu, Z.; Chiang, Y.;  and Jiao, J.\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n  
International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 136: 104368.  2025.\n  
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@article{MAI2025104368,\n  title = {Towards the next generation of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence},\n  journal = {International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation},\n  volume = {136},\n  pages = {104368},\n  year = {2025},\n  issn = {1569-8432},\n  doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2025.104368},\n  url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1569843225000159},\n  author = {Gengchen Mai and Yiqun Xie and Xiaowei Jia and Ni Lao and Jinmeng Rao and Qing Zhu and Zeping Liu and Yao-Yi Chiang and Junfeng Jiao},\n  keywords = {Geospatial Artificial Intelligence, Heterogeneity-aware GeoAI, Knowledge-Guided GeoAI, Spatial representation learning, Geo-Foundation Models, Fairness-aware GeoAI, Privacy-aware GeoAI, Interpretable and explainable GeoAI},\n  abstract = {Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI), as the integration of geospatial studies and AI, has become one of the fastest-developing research directions in spatial data science and geography. This rapid change in the field calls for a deeper understanding of the recent developments and envision where the field is going in the near future. In this work, we provide a quantitative analysis of the GeoAI literature from the spatial, temporal, and semantic aspects. We briefly discuss the history of AI and GeoAI by highlighting some pioneering work. Then we discuss the current landscape of GeoAI by selecting five representative subdomains including remote sensing, urban computing, Earth system science, cartography, and geospatial semantics. Finally, we highlight several unique future research directions of GeoAI which are classified into two groups: GeoAI method development challenges and GeoAI Ethics challenges. Topics include heterogeneity-aware GeoAI, knowledge-guided GeoAI, spatial representation learning, geo-foundation models, fairness-aware GeoAI, privacy-aware GeoAI, as well as interpretable and explainable GeoAI. We hope our review of GeoAI’s past, present, and future is comprehensive and can enlighten the next generation of GeoAI research.}\n}\n\n\n
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\n  Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI), as the integration of geospatial studies and AI, has become one of the fastest-developing research directions in spatial data science and geography. This rapid change in the field calls for a deeper understanding of the recent developments and envision where the field is going in the near future. In this work, we provide a quantitative analysis of the GeoAI literature from the spatial, temporal, and semantic aspects. We briefly discuss the history of AI and GeoAI by highlighting some pioneering work. Then we discuss the current landscape of GeoAI by selecting five representative subdomains including remote sensing, urban computing, Earth system science, cartography, and geospatial semantics. Finally, we highlight several unique future research directions of GeoAI which are classified into two groups: GeoAI method development challenges and GeoAI Ethics challenges. Topics include heterogeneity-aware GeoAI, knowledge-guided GeoAI, spatial representation learning, geo-foundation models, fairness-aware GeoAI, privacy-aware GeoAI, as well as interpretable and explainable GeoAI. We hope our review of GeoAI’s past, present, and future is comprehensive and can enlighten the next generation of GeoAI research.\n
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