Remote sensing for UN SDGs: A global analysis of research and collaborations

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a policy-making baseline for countries to overcome shortcomings and barriers for people and the planet Earth by 2030. Remote sensing (RS) enables evidence-based policy making and can contribute to realization of the SDGs by monitoring the indicators and evaluating the targets related to human and physical geography. This study exploited the RS research concerning the SDGs based on a Web of Science Core Collection database query [TS=((“remote sensing” OR “Earth observation*”) AND (“Sustainable Development Goal*”))] between 2016 and 2022 and by utilizing an artificial intelligence tool developed for SDG classification. We retrieved and analyzed articles (n = 308) using science mapping techniques. Remote Sensing is the most relevant journal publishing articles related to this theme. While the dominance of Chinese institutes in terms of authors' affiliation is clear, the highest collaboration network is between the USA and China. Our findings revealed that subjects related to carbon storage, ecological quality and impervious surface draw attention of researchers increasingly and becoming trend topics. From the SDG classification results, SDG 15 and SDG 11 emerged as the most prevalent subjects related to the RS research. Given the exponential increase in the number of studies, we recommend to employ bibliometric analysis and science mapping tools to systematically identify research patterns and gaps in both fields, as manual efforts may progressively become challenging.