The Challenge
Background
In September 2015, world leaders worked together to adopt a universal agenda for all countries and stakeholders to use as a blueprint for progress on economic, social and environmental sustainability. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is comprised of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), 169 Targets, and a Global Indicator Framework, providing countries a management tool to implement development strategies and to monitor and achieve progress.
Earth observations and geospatial information are uniquely suited to being integrated into national information systems and monitoring frameworks to: support the generation of high-quality and timely information; address data gaps; and contribute to the disaggregation of SDG indicators.
You are invited to join global champions in improving world health and education, reducing inequality, and spurring economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests. Your task is to inform the general public and support local managers and public agencies (national statistical offices, ministries, national mapping agencies) by using Earth observations for the tracking, monitoring, and reporting on progress on SDG targets and indicators, with an emphasis on: SDG 3 (Health and Well-Being), SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 14 (Life Below Water), and SDG 15 (Life on Land).
The power to change the world and make it a better place is now in your hands!
Areas of particular interest include:
- Earth observation solutions to address SDG interlinkages and trade-offs, e.g., linking land use/land cover change or management to freshwater and coastal pollution, and addressing multiple SDG targets through one solution.
- Solutions to identify, monitor, and address or improve environmental factors affecting human health.
- Solutions to map and analyze urban population patterns including the proportion of urban population living in informal settlements or inadequate housing.
- Visualizations or interactive applications to showcase the interconnectedness of SDGs in people’s lives via the use of NASA Earth observation data as well as information generated by crowd-sourcing, social media, and in situ measurements.
Potential Considerations
Some examples of potential solutions include (but are not limited to!):
- A decision support tool that helps monitor disease patterns, identify environmental factors that contribute to the spread of diseases, such as vector-borne diseases, and specify areas requiring disease-control planning.
- A user-friendly product that integrates national and global level data including in situ observations from regular monitoring stations for coastal eutrophication/pollution.
- An interactive application and/or data visualization tool that tracks and visualizes how marine litter/garbage circulates (and is transported) around the world – its origins and/or factors that influence its movement (e.g. ocean currents, other).
- An analysis and visualization tool that demonstrates how Earth observations can help assess SDG interlinkages and tradeoffs, especially as they relate to the sustainable use of natural resources.
PLEASE BE SURE TO SPECIFY the SDG(s)/Target(s)/Indicator(s) your solution is aiming to address.
The most compelling solutions to this challenge will clearly manifest benefits for user communities – local and national authorities responsible for SDG monitoring and reporting, UN agencies, other major groups and stakeholders – by helping them use Earth observations to address specific SDG targets and indicators on a local, national or global scale.