EO Toolkit for Sustainable Cities & Human Settlements
Tracking progress towards SDG 11 and the New Urban Agenda
The Importance of Earth Observations for SDG Monitoring and Implementation
Earth observations from space-borne, airborne and in-situ platforms provide spatial, spectral, and temporal information that can be processed and transformed into variables or high-level products that are useful to produce Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators.
Earth observations can complement national statistics at the appropriate scale for SDG reporting, and are a crucial data source for many of the indicators describing the environmental aspects of the planet, and for indicator disaggregation at finer spatial scales. Earth observations provide a synoptic view of the Earth's surface, regular, multi-annual, and repeatable observations, and allow for cost-effective monitoring of remote or inaccessible areas.
Earth Observations for Sustainable Development Goals, EO4SDG
EO4SDG is an international initiative from the Group on Earth Observations that extends the use of Earth observations to advance the 2030 Agenda and enable societal benefits through the achievement of the SDGs. Co-chaired by the United States, Japan, and Mexico, EO4SDG’s goals include demonstrating practical Earth observation data uses, building capacity, promoting data access, and supporting country and stakeholder adoption of Earth observations for SDG implementation, monitoring, and reporting.
SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements
The Earth Observations Toolkit for Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements
The Earth Observations Toolkit for Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements is an online knowledge resource that integrates local participation and enables the use of Earth observations to advance SDG 11 and the New Urban Agenda.
The Toolkit is the result of a collaborative effort between the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat), EO4SDG and many contributors from the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) community.
Over 30 organizations have contributed to the Toolkit, including representatives from national statistical offices, national mapping agencies, city authorities, academia, research institutions, non-governmental organizations, space agencies, and the private sector.
The web portal hosts use cases, data, and tools for SDG 11 applications on housing, open spaces, urbanization, and public transport. These resources can also be applied to assess and mitigate risks linked with epidemic spreads, and to monitor access to infrastructure and facilities in high demand during pandemics. The Toolkit also facilitates collaboration among local groups, cities, national agencies, and Earth observation experts, promoting knowledge sharing across levels.
“We have found that users of the toolkit have appreciated the simplified approaches it provides to data producers across many institutions. Many have emphasized the value of continuous updates of resources to facilitate continuous monitoring of urban SDGs and NUA indicators and targets.” Robert Ndugwa, Head, Data & Analytics Section UN-Habitat
Opportunities for improved monitoring of global urban targets
Toolkit resources, including urban-related Earth observation data sets – mainly ready-to-use data products – and tools, can be filtered by different parameters such as data characteristics, coding environment, and SDG indicator, to help users discern application areas and distinct attributes for the data and tools. There is also a number of use cases and resources for continuous learning in these areas.
Contributors
The Toolkit relies on a partnership of over 30 organizations and international experts. A Toolkit Steering Committee comprises four working groups:
A. Impact Working Group
B. Awareness and Capacity Development Working Group
C. Bench Learning across Levels Working Group
D. FAIR Data Working Group
"The Toolkit responds to the need to improve the production of reliable, comparable, and timely data on SDG using Earth observations and supports geo statistical capacity-building worldwide, while spreading knowledge about earth observations and geospatial analysis/technology capabilities.” Marwa Elkabbany, UAE Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre
Join Us!
The Toolkit is continuously updated with new data, tools, learning material, case studies, and other relevant contributions. We invite you to join our working groups, share your feedback via our contact page and submit a case study, tool, or other relevant information for publication on the Toolkit via our contribute page .