ESA and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

There are many ways that space tech impacts our life directly, such as communication satellites, or indirectly, through technology transfer or spin-off. ESA also has a more active role in affecting our planet and making our world more sustainable, as ESA works to help achieve the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.  

In 2000, Earth was facing Yellow fever, Cholera, Lass fever, hunger, poverty, and many other problems. To improve world conditions, 189 countries got together and developed a plan called Millenium Development Goals. The plan envisioned helping people suffering from extreme hunger or poverty, children to attend schools, and decrease children's death tools by 2015.  

Due to the program's achievements, in 2015, another meeting happened, resulting in 17 resolutions, the SDGs, to end poverty and hunger by 2030. ESA supports each resolution which approaches subjects such as health, climate, land, oceans, waterways, and others.  

In 2018, ESA created a catalog with about 300 activities supporting UN sustainable goals (SDGs). By the end of 2019, there were 730 projects and activities.  

In 2019, ESA held the Space19+ Council Meeting to establish financing for ESA's activities in the coming years. In this meeting, it was approached how space programs focusing on regional and thematic challenges address Earth's problems. And those programs were connected with non-space policies, bridging space and society.  

In the next posts, we will talk about each SGD's goals and some activities that ESA is involved in that are connected to those goals. 

1 – No Poverty  

This resolution aim is to end poverty in all its form everywhere. 

ESA is supporting international development and development banks, which often invest in regions where it is difficult to monitor and evaluate. The Earth-observing satellites are a critical asset for the development sector. ESA also supports baking systems and the sustainable production of food.  

Using satellites makes it possible to observe an area consistently over space and time, monitor water quality and pollutants, the health of coral reefs, changes in land cover, and how coastal zones are influenced by sea-level rise. It is also useful to analyze complex urban expansion, such as in Asia, improving the investment of billion dollars in infrastructure, urban design, and land-use strategies.  

World bank uses satellite data of unmapped areas to locate sensitive places, such as wetland area and cultural heritage sites, to monitor a vegetation-covered area, deforested and degraded areas. That information help implement projects that will better conserve sensitive landscapes and natural resources. Satellite data is also used to monitor the stress made by a filled reservoir exerts on the dam and the impact it and its power plant have on the environment. It is crucial to monitor changes when there is a nature reserve area near the new reservoir, helping to make decisions on safeguard projects.  

In Niger, food security is a significant concern. Less than 4% of the country's land is arable and prone to drought. Livestock production and nomadic pastoralism are vital for the agricultural domestic product. Even though trades often happen in local markets and are organized by strong traditional networks, herders move according to water and food accessibility. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) creates maps with satellite data to support small-scale rural producers and works to ensure food security. Satellites can show defined lines of nomadic pastoralism, helping locate the corridors network that are passages for livestock and not normal road maps. Those networks connect pastures, water points, and grazing areas in villages and farmlands. Those areas are regulated by the Rural Code to prevent conflicts between farmers and herders. This corridor's information can also help IFAD decide on projects of water and forage supply, livestock markets, and cross-border animal transfers.  

Satellites are also enabling bank transactions in remote locations in sub-Saharan African countries where land networks are not possible or non-existent, making the area unconnected to the outside world.  

  2 – Zero hunger  

This resolution proposes to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.  

Some of the reasons for famines are poverty, inadequate management and policies, ineffective management of natural resources and environment, episodic climatic and climate change, and population dynamics, such as growth, conflicts, migration, diseases, and land shortage.   

ESA is promoting sustainable agriculture with projects to monitor food production and security, and health of livestock.  

One of the projects that ESA is involved in is SMELLS (Soil Moisture for dEsert Locus earLy Survey). The project addresses food security in Africa, and it is using data from Sentinel – 1 SAR combined with thermal disaggregated SMOS-derived soil moisture. The information will help detect desert locus population outbreak and early increase of population before it extends into a plague. The remote sensing tools used before SMELLS focused on vegetation levels, such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and derived products. However, the information might arrive for managers at the same time locust populations are already increasing, not giving decision-makers enough time to decide when to send survey teams.  To have information about soil enables one to take an early decision. As soil moisture is a good indicator of an area's reproduction potential, moist areas are needed for Desert locust females to lay their eggs.  

Another project ESA is involved in related to food security is the Global Monitoring for Food Security (GMFS) and Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES). The project counts with 2 - 3 weeks FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Missions in which teams of professionals are sent to countries in Africa. The team interview staff of relevant government departments collect weather conditions data, crop forecasts, food shortages, etc. They also cross-check info with extension officers, farmers, remote sensing data, and others, as validation with ground information crucial. 

The mission will offer remote sensing-based maps, assess crop status and growth rate, and provide reports on crop and yield forecasts, evapotranspiration, water availability, and estimation of planted areas. It also monitors vegetation changes and cropped areas, assesses flooded areas, multi-temporal analysis to estimate agricultural regions, providing timely information and estimates based on the agrometeorological model, and helping identify grass and bushland and agriculture maize challenging to distinguish. 

Those are some of the activities related to the first two GDSs. However, ESA has an active role in all resolutions, working towards a more sustainable world. We will present the other goals in the next posts.

Follow us on Linkedin, Twitter, or Facebook to get our updates.

This article was written by Juliane Verissímo - Marketing Department of VisionSpace