Systematic review of georeferencing methods for historical aerial and satellite imagery

This PRISMA-compliant systematic review synthesizes georeferencing practices across 205 peer-reviewed studies drawn from an initial pool of 2,547 articles.

The review documents that workflows remain predominantly manual or semi-automatic, that ground control points are used in 89% of studies, and that accuracy reporting is highly inconsistent across the literature due to reliance on control-point residuals rather than independent checkpoints.

The review provides a concrete empirical roadmap for integrating emerging deep learning approaches and expanding coverage in geographically underrepresented regions.

Liu, W., & Yang, D. (2026). Century-scale earth observation: Systematic review of georeferencing methods for historical aerial and satellite imagery. Remote Sensing, 18(7), 1052.