CAS Big Earth Data Research Results Released to Support Global Sustainable Development

On September 20, 2022 local time, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi chaired the Ministerial Meeting of the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative (GDI) held in New York.

As the sponsor of the GDI and the largest developing country in the world, the Chinese side announced seven additional measures to implement the 2030 Agenda, which includes making available globally the data acquired by the Sustainable Development Science Satellite (SDGSAT-1) launched by China in November last year to assist countries in sustainable development research and decision-making. To facilitate its data sharing, the "SDGSAT-1 Open Science Program" was launched this September.

At the meeting, the Chinese side released the Report on Big Earth Data in Support of the Sustainable Development Goals (2022), which covers 42 typical research cases focusing on seven SDGs and involving 31 sets of data products, 21 method models and 33 decision support information. According to the report, nearly half of the 56 environmental SDG indicators of China have been achieved ahead of schedule. It is the fourth straight year since 2019 that China releases the Report series, providing scientific evidences for quantitative and systematic evaluating the implementation of SDGs at the Chinese, regional and global scales.

On behalf of the Chinese government, Wang Yi presented to the UN six sets of data products for global sustainable development, including data products on global arable land and forest coverage, so as to provide data support for all countries to better achieve food security, ecological conservation on land, and other sustainable development goals.

The above-mentioned research is conducted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) along with the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS) which was established in September 2021 to facilitate the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.