Objectives   China is one of the countries most affected by natural disasters. The emergency surveying and mapping is an important part of the comprehensive disaster prevention and mitigation system in China. It plays an increasingly prominent role in the response system for the major natural disasters and emergencies. However, series of problems are still existing, such as lacking of capacity in the rapid acquirement of field information, lacking of rapid response of data processing. Also, given the emergency response relies on the on-demand service, it faces difficulties on efficiently sharing of geographical information with stakeholder. Thus, it is urgent to improve capacity of rapid geo-informatics support in order to build an efficient and scientific nature hazard rapid response system.

  Methods   We propose a technology framework and system architecture of national emergency surveying and mapping. It consists of four key techniques, including:(1)Space-Air-Ground integration observation network, to acquire disaster information and multi-sensors collaborative observation for various disaster emergence response needs; (2) high performance computing and artificial intelligence techniques, which can greatly improve the efficiency of massive data processing; (3) geographic information based on cloud platform, which can provide on-demand service to stakeholder; (4) multi-hazard mapping knowledge that can be comprehensively expressed and distributed crossing multiple media carriers.

  Results   Based on the national emergency surveying and mapping capacity developing program, the outcome of this research covers four aspects in order to improve emergence response capabilities. They are: (1) the capability of obtaining latest disaster information using remote sensing technology; (2) the capability of on-site surveying and investigating; (3) the capability of sharing emergency spatial information; and (4) the capability of supporting emergency management and decision.

  Conclusions   The program motivated from the national emergency response and disaster relief demands for efficient geographic information service.It integrates state-of-art information technology such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence and block chain.It meets the need of multiple emergency response stages, including disaster monitoring and early-warning, disaster assessment, emergency rescue, and post-disaster reconstruction, the relevant technologies include geo-information acquisition, processing and analysis efficiently.