Informal settlements house more than a billion people worldwide and face disproportionate exposure to environmental, climate, and socio-economic risks, including urban heat, air and water pollution, flooding, and limited access to basic infrastructure. Yet these communities remain poorly represented in conventional monitoring systems and urban data, constraining evidence-based decision-making.

This session welcomes interdisciplinary research that leverages emerging technologies, such as AI, big data analytics, remote sensing, low-cost sensors, mobility data, and citizen science, to advance risk analysis and sustainable management of informal settlements. We invite contributions on (1) fine-scale mapping and characterization of environmental and infrastructural conditions, (2) detection and assessment of multi-hazard risks and vulnerability, (3) quantification of socio-environmental inequalities and exposure disparities, and (4) data-driven frameworks that inform inclusive, sustainable, and evidence-based urban policy.

• GC - Global Environmental Change
• NH - Natural Hazards
• SY - Science and Society