March, 2018
This new 2018 Special Edition of the EO Handbook – Satellite Earth Observations in Support of the Sustainable Development Goals – is the 3 rd thematic EO Handbook (preceded by the EO Handbooks on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate). Coordinated by ESA on behalf of the CEOS Ad Hoc Team on SDGs, with valuable contributions from Symbios Spazio, the GEO Initiative on SDGs (EO4SDG), and the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), this 100-page Handbook promotes and showcases the contribution of Earth observations to the realization of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, its goals and targets, and to the SDG Global Indicator Framework.
The Handbook consists of three main parts:
- Part I provides an overview of the 2030 Agenda and explains the role of EO in support of the SDGs, Targets, and Indicators.
- Part II compiles a number of contributed articles from several SDG stakeholders: the UN governance system on SDGs (UN Statistical Division), the UN specialized Agencies in charge of SDG Indicators, National Statistical Organisations, NGOs, International Financing Institutions, etc.
- Part III provides some practical examples of EO contributions, for 5 specific goals:
- SDG 2 on Zero Hunger
- SDG 6 on Clean Water and Sanitation
- SDG 11 on Sustainable Cities
- SDG 14 on Life Below Water
- SDG 15 on Life on Land
The Handbook was officially released at the 49th session of the UN Statistical Commission (UNSC), held in New York City 6-9 March 2018, during a side meeting organised by UN-GGIM on March 5th — The Statistical-Geospatial Integration Forum: “Integrating Statistical, geospatial and other big data to leave no one behind”. This side meeting also included a special panel on “Satellite observations for sustainable development goals”, in which NASA and ESA participated on behalf of GEO and CEOS, respectively.
Access/download: