The Silk Road was an ancient network oftrade routes. For centuries, the trade routes, which connected the East andWest, played an important rolefor the cultural interaction through regions of the Euro-Asiancontinent. Various environmental issues such as land use andclimate change, vast dust storms and unsustainable water managementin this area have trans-boundary effects.Stability and progress inthe area along the Silk Road corridor rely heavily on the close collaborationof different sections of all countries in the region to overcome various environmentalchallenges.

SilkGIS 2018 is the second internationalconference of the SilkGIS series, which was initiated by Isfahan University ofTechnology incorporating with Xinjiang Institute of Geography and Ecology ofthe Chinese Academy of Sciences. The First International Conference of SilkGISwas successfully held in 2017 inIsfahan, Iran. The conference series aims to exchange ideas,technologies, scientific findings, and knowledge between academics,scientists, policy makers, public servants, and practitioners in the fields of geospatialinformation sciences and technology, natural resources, environment, planning,business and management.Theobjectives are: (1) establishing international research network; (2) discussingand identifying international collaborative and focused research subjects; (3)encouraging joint research postgraduate education programsamong universities, research institutes and industry; and (4) promotingcollaborations with international organizations, academic and researchinstitutions.