The Crucial Roles of Geospatial Techniques in The COVID-19 Fight : A Systematic Review

Abstract

The Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) appeared in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, spreading from there across China and the whole world. Such advanced technologies as geospatial techniques have been applied to fight the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2. This paper aims to review and synthesize the types of applications offered through geospatial techniques to help address different issues related to the fight of the COVID-19 pandemic. The content is presented under four sub-sections; namely the roles of GIS, Remote Sensing, Global Positioning System and Internet Mapping Technologies in the fight of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was found from summarising 73 scientific papers, geospatial techniques have been proven their effectiveness not only in the study of COVID-19 in general, but also in the fight of the pandemic in particular. The wide range of applications offered by geospatial techniques affirms the value of this technique to the COVID-19 fight.