In the era of big data, there has been a surge in the availability of data
containing rich spatial and temporal information, offering valuable insights
into dynamic systems and processes for applications such as weather
forecasting, natural disaster management, intelligent transport systems, and
precision agriculture. Graph neural networks (GNNs) have emerged as a powerful
tool for modeling and understanding data with dependencies to each other such
as spatial and temporal dependencies. There is a large amount of existing work
that focuses on addressing the complex spatial and temporal dependencies in
spatiotemporal data using GNNs. However, the strong interdisciplinary nature of
spatiotemporal data has created numerous GNNs variants specifically designed
for distinct application domains. Although the techniques are generally
applicable across various domains, cross-referencing these methods remains
essential yet challenging due to the absence of a comprehensive literature
review on GNNs for spatiotemporal data. This article aims to provide a
systematic and comprehensive overview of the technologies and applications of
GNNs in the spatiotemporal domain. First, the ways of constructing graphs from
spatiotemporal data are summarized to help domain experts understand how to
generate graphs from various types of spatiotemporal data. Then, a systematic
categorization and summary of existing spatiotemporal GNNs are presented to
enable domain experts to identify suitable techniques and to support model
developers in advancing their research. Moreover, a comprehensive overview of
significant applications in the spatiotemporal domain is offered to introduce a
broader range of applications to model developers and domain experts, assisting
them in exploring potential research topics and enhancing the impact of their
work. Finally, open challenges and future directions are discussed