The overall goal of this session is to explore and evaluate the potential of application of advanced GIScience technologies, such as remote sensing (RS), GIS, GPS and spatial statistics in mapping, modeling, monitoring and assessing various natural disasters. Natural disasters, such as floods, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, can cause immense loss of life and/or property. A natural disaster is a major adverse event resulting from natural processes of the Earth. Such processes could be efficiently investigated and well understood with modern geospatial technologies. Specifically, this session will provide a showcase of the state-of-the-art of utilizing advanced GIScience technologies to map, model, monitor, predict, and assess natural disasters. This session aims to attract contributions to cover, without being limited to, the following areas:

• Wildfires: Hotspot detection and burn scar mapping and environmental impact assessment as well using satellite RS data, GIS, GPS, etc.;
• Landslides: Monitoring, mapping and assessing landslides using RADAR/LiDAR and/or optical RS devices, GIS and GPS;
• Earthquakes/tsunamis: Mapping condition pre- and post-, and evaluation of loss and damage after earthquakes/tsunamis using multitemporal RS and GIS techniques.
• Other natural disasters: Mapping and monitoring of volcanic eruptions, flooding and tornado/hurricane damage and processes, etc. using GIScience technologies and modeling tools.

This session aims to attract contributions that showcase the state-of-the-art of Earth Observation techniques to investigate dynamic natural processes and anthropogenic activities shaping Planet Earth.

Papers that deal with the following areas of study are therefore welcome:

• Geological processes
• Lithological mapping
• Natural hazards
• Coastal processes
• Anthropogenic use of land and Earth resources
• Urban environments
• Infrastructure asset monitoring
• Cultural and natural heritage

Papers should make use of remote sensing data including, but not limited to, the following:

• Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)
• Interferometric SAR (InSAR)
• Optical remote sensing
• Hyperspectral sensors
• Thermal imagery

Moreover, papers that present research undertaken with data from current and novel space missions (e.g., Copernicus Sentinels, Gaofen-3) are particularly welcome.

The current (May 2020) pandemic related to COVID-19 has thrown into turmoil teaching and research institutions around the world that have to react in a few days to keep at least part of their activities.

There is no guarantee that this kind of situation will not occur again in the future, either by another pandemic or by events such as floods or snow blizzards, which may be promoted by climate change. There are also situations were students or staff could face, total or partial, temporary or permanent, displacement difficulties (such as disabilities).

Additionally, a lower frequency of displacements will have diverse environmental and social advantages such as reducing pollutants emissions and movements of people and it creates new opportunities for diverse types of developments.

Remote operations could allow also a more flexible schedule and reduce time constraints favouring the inclusion of people with multiple activities such as working students and people caring for families (infants, elderly, sick).

Furthermore, and more specifically for geological studies, the development of remote procedures could be useful for studies in extreme environments unsuitable for human activities such as volcanoes, deep ocean, etc.

The IECG is a clear example of an activity that was performed exclusively onsite a few years ago and that can now be performed today exclusively by remote means.

This does not mean that it will be desirable to abandon all onsite activities but there is a clear interest in seeking alternatives, at least in part (even if there are some core activities that should remain onsite).

With this topic of IECG 2020, we seek contributions were remote operations can replace traditional procedures. This will be at the forefront of the intersection between technology and geology but our focus will be always on the contribution to geological teaching and research.

Among the subjects that will be suitable for this topic are:

• Approaches to the teaching of geological concepts that go beyond and above the simple webinar, the database search or the paper reading, promoting interactions with the students (individually and collectively) as well as between the students;
• Online analyses of terrains and outcrops (namely in real time);
• Fieldwork operations controlled by remote operators such as operated vehicles for the acquisition of images, radiations, etc., for mineral exploration work or geotechnical studies;
• Collection of samples of geological media (rocks, soils, water and gases) in isolated or dangerous (for humans) places;
• Remote operations of analytical instruments (such as microscopes, x-ray diffractometers, etc.);
• Remote observations of hand samples and microscopic preparations;
• Preparing and using 3D models of geological objects, from field structures to hand samples and microscopic sections both in academic and professional contexts.

This session aims to attract contributions that showcase the state-of-the-art of geoscientific techniques, remote sensing and laboratory investigations to detect, characterize, monitor, and model natural hazards and assess their associated risks.

Papers that deal with the following categories of natural hazards are therefore welcome:

• environmental
• geological
• geophysical
• hydro-meteorological
• atmospheric
• climatological
• oceanographic
• biological
• and (co-)triggered by human actions

Moreover, papers that present scientific assessment of recent hazard events are also encouraged.

Water isn’t only a resource, having multiple values, and, for the environment, it is a crucial tool to ensure natural systems survive and thrive for the benefit of all. Water, for the human being, is the source of life, but it can be a source of death, when phenomena such floods, under climate change effects, occur.

Moreover, climate change is a growing up factor of pressure on groundwater resources availability and water quality protection.

Papers for this section include, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Climate change effects on precipitations;
• Climate change effects on groundwater quality and recharge;
• Human rights and ethic question;
• hydrological cycle, wet and dry season.

Paleontology is one of the successfully developing and promising areas of science, which is necessary for solving the problems of the development of recent biota and detection of the ways of its transformation.

The International Chronostratigraphic Chart is constantly being corrected, added and improved, which leads to an increasingly accurate reflection of events in earth history. The main objective of this session is to introduce researchers with new research findings, and exchange of new knowledge between them.

Researches for this section “Contemporary problems of paleontology and stratigraphy” include, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Systematics of fossil organisms;
• Evolutionary paleontology;
• Paleofaunistics, paleofloristics and clarification of the fossil record;
• Paleobiogeography;
• Taphonomy;
• Biostratigraphy, biocorrelation and the international chronostratigraphic chart.

If you just prepared the abstract and presentation , you could submit the abstract to related section and upload the presentation to the Poster Section.