Earth Observations for Sustainable Development Goals

Dear Colleagues,

Earth observation (EO) provides extensive data, from radar to optical sensors, and from satellite (RS) to airborne. Spatial coverage and revisiting the periods of observations are significantly increasing with new sensors and platforms, allowing for observing the same area from huge and diverse spatial, spectral, and temporal perspectives, with a large range of thematic applications. In turn, there are hundreds of multi-lateral environment agreements addressing societal and economic development. In 2015, the United Nations approved the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which define a safe operating space for humanity through 17 goals articulated in 169 targets and 240 indicators to measure progress.

EO has been proven to be a valuable source for Earth monitoring. However, some studies suggest that the current indicator framework is biased to socioeconomic variables, and only a few of them can be inferred by EO only. It is clear that currently, the intersection between SDG and EO has some limitations. To what extent? The following Special Issue aims to shed some light on aspects, including but not limited to, the following:

1. How can EO contribute to calculate SDG indicators?
2. How can EO be used to increase granularity (spatial resolution) of UN statistics?
3. How EO detects EVs useful to create indicators?
4. How can EO be used to understand the natural mechanism that affect sustainability (e.g., ecosystem services)?
5. How can EO be used to detect and characterize the extension of human activities (e.g., pollution, human settlements, etc)?
6. How SDGs offer a useful framework to show gaps in current remote sensing constellations?
7. Propose other indicators that could be better extracted from RS. 

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Remote Sensing.

Dr. Joan Masó
Dr. Ivette Serral
Dr. Alaitz Zabala Torres
Guest Editors

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• Sustainability
• Earth observation
• Monitoring
• Indications
• Modelling
• Pressures