Geoinformatics of Hotspot Detection and Prioritization for Digital Governance

A declared purpose of digital governance is to empower public for information access and analysis to enable transparency, accuracy, and efficiency for societal good at large. Hotspot detection and prioritization become natural undertakings as a result of the information access. Hotspot means spot that is hot, that can be of special interest or concern. Hotspot means something unusual—an anomaly, aberration, outbreak, elevated cluster, critical area, etc. The immediate need can be for monitoring, etiology, management, early warning and prioritization. Responsible factors can be natural, accidental, or intentional. Geoinformatic surveillance for spatial and temporal hotspot detection and prioritization is crucial in the 21st century. And so also the need for geoinformatic surveillance decision support system equipped with the next generation of geographic hotspot detection, prioritization, and early warning within emerging hotspots. This chapter describes ongoing cross-disciplinary research and some of the interesting results for geospatial and spatiotemporal hotspot detection and prioritization, driven by a diverse variety of case studies and issues of interest to government agencies, academia, and the private sector.