Applications Of Remote Sensing In The Study Of COVID-19 Pandemic – A Review

Abstract

The global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has spread worldwide, affecting almost all countries and territories. Various social-economic and environmental factors influence the outbreak and spread of the epidemic. Many modern techniques have been widely employed to study the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper aims to give an overview of applications offered by remote sensing techniques to study the COVID-19 pandemic through summarising a total of 55 scientific papers. Three different issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic is presented under three sub-sections; namely (1) applications of remotely sensed images on monitoring environmental changes and (2) the analysis of social and economic impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and (3) the use of remote sensing in studies of the epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2. The findings of this study provide important insights into how to apply such an advanced techniques as remote sensing in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The varied applications of remote sensing affirms the value of this advanced technique to the study of small-to-large scale disasters in general and of the COVID-19 pandemic in particular.