On February 25, a side event of the 52nd session of the United Nations Statistical Commission was held by video conference, at which Dr. Argie Kavvada, of the Earth Science Division at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters, on behalf of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Earth Observations for Sustainable Development Goals (EO4SDG) Initiative and UN-Habitat, officially launched the “Earth Observations Toolkit for Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements” to the world. Prof. Lu Dengsheng from School of Geographical Sciences was selected as a member of the Steering Committee.
It is reported that in order to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 and to further implement the New Urban Agenda (NUA), the GEO and UN-Habitat jointly built the “Earth Observations Toolkit for Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements”, designed to improve the earth observation capacity of countries and cities in the world for sustainable development. A total of 49 representatives from such international organizations as the GEO, UN-Habitat, NASA and European Union (EU), as well as countries, including the US, China, Japan, Sweden, Italy, Brazil, South Africa and Colombia, were selected as members of the Steering Committee. Among them are two Chinese experts, Prof. Lu Dengsheng of FNU and Research Fellow Kuang Wenhui of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
In 2020, FNU and the IGSNRR of CAS jointly published the GULUC-30 (http://www.chinageoss.cn/geoarc/en/index.html) and the 2020 annual report of Global Ecosystems and Environment Observation Analysis Research Cooperation, entitled “Global Urban Land Composite and Expansion in 2000-2020” (http://www.chinageoss.cn/geoarc/2020/index.html). The relevant results, benchmarked against the UN SDG11 (11.1; 11.3; 11.7), and as an important component of earth observation toolkit, will be popularized and applied globally.
(Translated by Wu Qinhui/ Reviewed by Xie Xiujuan )