International Journal of Digital Earth

Volume 13, 2020 - Issue 2: Towards integrated Essential Variables for Environmental Sustainability

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"Measuring the achievement of a sustainable development requires the integration of various data sets and disciplines describing bio-physical and socio-economic conditions.

These data allow characterizing any location on Earth, assessing the status of the environment at various scales (e.g. national, regional, global), understanding interactions between different systems (e.g. atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, geosphere), and modeling future changes.

The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) was established in 2005 in response to the need for coordinated, comprehensive, and sustained observations related to the state of the Earth.

GEO’s global engagement priorities include supporting the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement on Climate, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

A proposition is made for generalizing and integrating the concept of EVs across the Societal Benefit Areas of GEO and across the border between Socio-Economic and Earth systems EVs. The contributions of the European Union projects ConnectinGEO and GEOEssential in the evaluation of existing EV classes are introduced. Finally, the main aim of the 10 papers of the special issue is shortly presented and mapped according to the proposed typology of SBA-related EV classes."

Figure 1. A proposition for generalizing and integration the concept of EVs across the Societal Benefit Areas of GEO and across the border between Socio-Economic and Earth systems EVs. Set of proposed EVs groups in grey boxes, Natural resource and corresponding data services forming the Natural capitals necessary for environmental sustainability (left-direction arrows), and socio-economic impacts jeopardizing Earth system integrity (right-direction arrow).