The 17 SDGs adopted by the UN as part of the 2030 Agenda constitute a global framework for achieving sustainable development. They have become a strategic priority and focus of action for countries worldwide. However, almost halfway into the 2030 Agenda process, its implementation has been seriously hindered by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, with global progress in individual goals even facing setbacks.
The 17 SDGs adopted by the UN as part of the 2030 Agenda constitute a global framework for achieving sustainable development. They have become a strategic priority and focus of action for countries worldwide. However, almost halfway into the 2030 Agenda process, its implementation has been seriously hindered by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, with global progress in individual goals even facing setbacks. The goals will not be achieved by 2030 unless implementation is accelerated. In 2021, about one-tenth of the world’s population went hungry; more than three billion people were at health risk due to scarce data on the water quality of rivers, lakes, and groundwater; globally, 733 million people still lacked access to electricity; cities were hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic; four key climate change indicators—global greenhouse gas concentration, sea-level rise, ocean heat, and ocean acidification—hit record highs; increasing ocean acidification, eutrophication, and plastic pollution put the livelihoods of billions of people at risk; and continued global deforestation, land and ecosystem degradation, and loss of biodiversity posed major threats to human survival and sustainable development (UN 2022; Sachs et al. 2022).
Science, technology, and innovation can help address these major challenges, primarily to support assessments at national and local scales and inform policy-making by enhancing data capacity for SDG monitoring and evaluation. The UN Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 pointed out that the pandemic has delayed the development of new national statistical plans worldwide, and there are still considerable gaps in the geographical coverage and timeliness of global data on indicators (UN 2022). Meanwhile, the current indicator data are primarily of coarse-grained statistical values, with the time resolution mostly being “annual” and the spatial resolution mostly “national,” incapable of disaggregation by geographical locations, population distributions, and environmental differences, which are crucial to thoroughly assessing regional differences in SDG progress and identifying those lagging behind. Thus, there is not enough data to effectively inform sub-national governments’ decision-making. According to estimates from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 105 out of the 169 SDG targets will be challenging to achieve without sufficiently engaging sub-national governments (OECD 2020). Many are environmental targets sensitive to spatial and temporal changes.
As the core of digital technology, big data has become an important engine of digital transformation across societies. Big Earth Data, a key part of big data, mainly composed of Earth observation and geospatial data, has the advantages of easy acquisition, timely updates, objective results, and higher resolution. Moreover, it covers different spatial scales and geographical locations free from administrative fragmentation, allowing a more accurate assessment of SDG indicator progress and prompt detection of problems. Its role in analyzing the complex interactions and co-evolution between nature and social systems will contribute to the overall understanding and realization of the SDGs.
The seven SDGs of Zero Hunger (SDG 2), Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6), Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG 7), Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11), Climate Action (SDG 14), Life Below Water (SDG 14), and Life on Land (SDG 15) are closely related to Earth’s surface environment and human activity and can be directly measured and evaluated using Big Earth Data. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has used its interdisciplinary strengths to gather a wide variety of Big Earth Data, including satellite remote sensing images, geospatial data, social media data, and statistical data, for these seven SDGs. CAS has developed innovative technologies and methods for big data processing and analysis based on cloud computing, such as the production of global public data products, the monitoring and evaluation of SDG indicators at multiple scales, and multi-indicator trade-off-and-synergy analysis, to provide data, methods, and information for SDG-related progress assessments, multi-disciplinary research, and multi-level decision-making (Fig. 1.1).
Examples of how big earth data supports SDGs
The reports on Big Earth Data in Support of the Sustainable Development Goals have been released annually since 2019. In terms of filling the data gaps, the reports provide high-quality data products previously lacking for monitoring SDG indicators, such as the dataset on the prevalence of stunting among children under five in China. They also provide additional background and analytical data for a deeper understanding of the progress and drivers of indicators, such as long-term time-series data products on global land use classification. In terms of methods and models, the reports offer new ways for more timely and detailed assessment and prediction of SDG indicators, such as a high-precision inversion model of global crop intensity and rapid extraction method of global urban impervious surfaces. The reports also present scientific evidence for decision support, including the tracking and assessment of China’s land degradation neutrality (LDN) and its contribution to the world, and the assessment of dynamic changes of water bodies in Ramsar sites, which can inform policy-making on improving the global synergy and comparability of indicators and addressing cross-border sustainable development issues. In 2022, in the context of climate change, the report added a chapter that looks at SDG 7 and its monitoring and evaluation based on Big Earth Data and explored the interactions between climate change and food systems, the carbon sequestration effect of desertification control, and changes in the physical marine environment under global warming.
Based on the datasets from the 2019–2022 reports, and with reference to the explicit thresholds in SDGs and targets, and quantitative targets defined by UN agencies and international organizations, the 2022 report assesses China’s progress on 56 environmental SDG indicators between 2010 and 2021 (UNEP 2021). Some quantitative findings on the progress include the exploratory results of applying critical big data processing, analytics, and other innovative methods.
The BAR is an abbreviation of the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road,” or the Belt and Road. The regions along the BAR are the most obvious areas with unbalanced and inadequate development and are crucial to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. The 2022 report focuses on updates and extensions, new methodologies and indicators, the tracking and evaluation of SDG implementation, the study of interactions among multiple SDGs, and coordinated development in light of those interactions. It presents 47 case studies on 19 targets relevant to countries and regions involved in the BAR initiative. The 2022 report showcases the results of research, monitoring, and evaluation of SDGs and their indicators at four scales—local, national, regional, and global—totaling 31 data products, 21 methods and models, and 33 decision-support recommendations.
With a deep commitment to sustainable development and experience-sharing, China has been promoting a balanced, coordinated, open, and inclusive new stage of global development. In September 2021, President Xi Jinping proposed a Global Development Initiative, calling for all-round cooperation in priority areas, including poverty alleviation, food security, climate change, green development, and connectivity, to ensure that no one is left behind in these areas aligned with the 2030 Agenda. According to the list of deliverables attached to the Chair’s Statement of the High-level Dialogue on Global Development held in June 2022, China will launch a Sustainable Development Satellite Constellation Plan, and develop and share data and information for SDG monitoring, which will be an important contribution to advancing global SDG cooperation in coordinated Earth observation, data sharing and application, and accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
As the mid-term evaluation of the 2030 Agenda approaches, the UN will comprehensively review and adjust its SDG indicator framework globally. In the context of lacking enough indicator monitoring data, properly adding easily accessible and internationally comparable big data indicators will effectively improve the existing condition of SDG monitoring and evaluation, and effectively support decision-making for sustainable development both globally and along the Belt and Road.
The book is divided into chapters. This chapter has introduced the topics of the case studies and the purpose of compiling them in this report. Chapters 2–8 provide examples of using Big Earth Data to measure and monitor the progress of seven SDGs. Chapter 9 provides new insights into the interactions among the SDGs and integrated evaluations. Chapter 10 summarizes the studies and reflects on future prospects.
Guo H., 2024. Introduction. In: Big Earth Data in Support of the Sustainable Development Goals (2022)—The Belt and Road, pp 1-4. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Singapore. Chapter.
