WORKSHOP

A contribution of the Group on Earth Observations Earth Observations for Sustainable Development Goals (EO4SDG) Initiative*

In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a global development agenda for all countries and stakeholders to use as a blueprint for progress on economic, social and environmental sustainability. Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and associated Targets and Indicators anchor the 2030 Agenda, which specifically calls for new data acquisition and exploitation of a wide range of data sources to support implementation. Four years into the SDG implementation, reliance on geospatial information and Earth observations has been gaining momentum as countries and relevant stakeholders apply information about people and places into monitoring and evaluation systems to improve human and environmental conditions and monitor progress towards achieving the SDGs.

In this training, attendees will become familiar with efforts to integrate geospatial information and Earth observations with other data sources for SDG monitoring, reporting, and implementation, including the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Earth Observations for Sustainable Development Goals (EO4SDG) Initiative's activities to extend, and increase skills and capabilities in, uses of Earth observations for SDG activities and their broader benefits. The training will primarily focus on sustainable urbanization and land use and cover change, and on using data generated from Earth observations to monitor changes, and produce SDG indicators, on land degradation and sustainable urbanization. The workshop will also introducce a freely-available QGIS tool, Trends.Earth, which allows users to to plot time series of key land change indicators, upload their own data, and compute indicators both in the form of maps and tables for ease of interpretation and reporting. The workshop will feature presentations, a demonstration of the Trends.Earth plugin hands-on exercise, and time for discussion and for the speakers to answer questions.