Launched on Wednesday, UN Financial and Social Fee for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) report Geospatial Practices for Sustainable Development showcases examples from the area’s international locations using purposes of house know-how to advance sustainable improvement.
“Night time-light” satellite tv for pc pictures monitoring the impression of lockdowns, “heatmaps” to chart out communities susceptible to the pandemic and its socio-economic penalties, real-time situational evaluation, and dashboards integrating a large gamut of important info to help selections are among the practices cited.
The examples, in accordance with the report, present how space applications and geospatial data have played an important role in offering important location-based and temporal knowledge to make an “total knowledge map” and snapshots on the COVID-19 pandemic for policymakers and the general public.
Strengthening resilience
As well as, combining spatial knowledge from contact tracing, quarantining, and social distancing with digital options and synthetic intelligence (AI)-driven danger analytics may help improve group resilience.
Such purposes also can assist in the restoration part to construct again higher, by offering an proof base for selections on the easing of lockdown and the resumption of financial and social actions, the report added.
“The efficient integration of geospatial knowledge, with current statistics and ground-based info, will probably be key to delivering the well timed knowledge wanted for governments, companies, communities and residents to make evidenced-based selections”, said Armida Salsiah Alisjahjabana, Govt Secretary of ESCAP.
The report, issued two years after Asian and Pacific international locations endorsed an ambitious plan of action on use of space technologies to help sustainable improvement additionally supplies a baseline for assessing future progress within the area.
Significance of partnerships
Along with presenting an summary of the standing alongside thematic areas comparable to catastrophe danger, pure useful resource administration, connectivity, social improvement, power, and local weather change, the report additionally highlights the significance of multi-stakeholder partnerships.
“Many regional and country-based efforts are sparking improvements that entice each private and non-private capital, supporting start-ups and spinoffs from house purposes analysis and pilots,” stated ESCAP.
The report outlined seven key suggestions for policymakers to combine purposes of geospatial info into their planning and actions in the direction of reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
These embody investments to domesticate nationwide consultants; incorporating geospatial info into nationwide establishments and platforms; integrating geospatial knowledge with different knowledge sources; using geospatial knowledge to create, implement and monitor insurance policies; making certain privateness, security and ethics of knowledge; offering open knowledge entry; and inspiring native to worldwide collaborations.
