The Geomatics and Environmental Health (GEH) Laboratory is one of the research laboratories under the Department of Geomatics, National Cheng Kung University which is headed by Associate Professor Chih-Da John Wu. GEH was established in August 2018. Its research scope focuses on the use of geospatial artificial intelligence (Geo-AI) on air pollution modelling and health exposure studies. Geo-AI involve statistical analysis and different spatial modelling techniques like kriging interpolation, land-use regression, machine learning, and ensemble learning by incorporating Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) technologies. These methods have been implemented to develop high-performing spatial models to estimate long-term concentrations of several air pollutants, which address the Taiwan’s limited number of monitoring stations. Also, there have been efforts to estimate indoor air pollution by incorporating the measurements from low-cost sensors in building the model. The research team aims to continuously improve the existing technologies on air pollution modelling. Thus, future studies will focus on developing a Geo-AI based model of air pollution concentration variation in both indoor and outdoor environments. 4D models will be composed of horizontal-vertical distribution (3D) and prediction of pollutant levels. This will involve field data collection using mobile air quality sensors attached to unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and scooters.  Other research directions of the GEH lab deal with the relationship of some environmental conditions and air pollution exposure to some diseases and disorders, its effect on the physical and mental health of a certain group of population by doing field data collection and utilizing the available health information from health institutions.

For the past four years, GEH has established partnerships with the Academica Sinica, National Health Research Institutes, National Center for High-performance Computing, and other government and academic institutions, local and international.