Current development of landscape geochemistry with support of geospatial technologies: A review

Abstract

As a cross-disciplinary scientific domain, a great deal of research on landscape geochemistry has been conducted since its establishment. However, the used methods lack the ability of revealing the relationships of landscape geochemistry with other sciences, and the obtained knowledge is thus fragmented and isolated. In this study, the state-of-the-art regarding the applications of relatively new geospatial technologies including fractal theory, geographic information system and remote sensing to landscape geochemistry was reviewed and analyzed to provide deep insights of current research and a roadmap for furthering the development of landscape geochemistry as a cross-disciplinary discipline. The results showed that substantial research on the applications of fractal theory, GIS and RS technologies for analyzing the processes and data of landscape geochemistry has been conducted by using the advantages of the geospatial technologies. However, the great challenges still exist when the geospatial technologies were individually utilized due to the limitations of the technologies themselves and the complexity of landscape geochemistry. In the end, opportunities and challenges for advancing the further studies of landscape geochemistry were discussed in detail and new directions of studying landscape geochemistry using multidisciplinary or integrated approaches to enhance understanding the relationships among the relevant disciplines were suggested.

Keywords:

• Landscape geochemistry
• fractal theory
• geographic information systems
• remote sensing
• environmental geochemistry
• exploration geochemistry
• multidisciplinary approach

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Funds of China (grant no. 41661144038 and 41301094), the Sichuan Basic Science and Technology Project (grant no.18YYJC1148), the Hundred Young Talents Program of the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (grant No.SDSQB-2015-02), the Leading Strategic Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. XDB03030507), the Open Fund for Key Laboratory of Geoscience Spatial Information Technology of Ministry of Land and Resources (grant no. KLGSIT2016-01), the Science and Technology Service Network Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. Y8R2020020) and the Branch of Mountain Sciences, Kathmandu Center for Research and Education, CAS-TU, Chengdu, China (grant no. Y8R3310310).