Big data in support of the Sustainable Development Goals: a celebration of the establishment of the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS)

Abstract

In the last century the impacts of human activity on natural processes that sustain the Earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere and that provide the bedrock of human life support systems, have grown to the extent that they pose a credible existential threat to humanity. Today, the biggest challenge for science, technology and innovation (STI) is to contribute to the pursuit of global sustainability as exemplified in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 2015. Referred to as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the SDGs comprise an ambitious, integrated framework of goals that represent humanity’s commitment to comprehensive and transformative action in response to the world’s most pressing social, economic, and environmental problems. In developing strategies for the successful achievement of the 2030 Agenda, the UN recognizes the importance of integrating scientific evidence in policy and decisionmaking processes. Through the Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM) and other means at its disposal, the UN encourages multi-stakeholder engagement and partnerships that can effectively mobilize and utilize STI to generate actionable knowledge and contribute practical solutions to global sustainability demands, problems, and challenges. One of the key aspects that the UN is focusing on is improving access to, and ensuring the quality of, reliable data sources. Doing so allows us to establish what situations, risks, and ongoing policies should be considered in order to correctly analyze data and develop effective strategies. The lack of a comprehensive implementation plan for the Global Indicator Framework for the Sustainable Development Goals and Targets, adopted by the UN in 2017 as a means of measuring and monitoring progress towards the SDGs, exposes the challenges and systems gaps in data collection. It points to a pressing need for the urgent identification of well-defined collection methods, which hitherto have prevented the successful implementation of the indicator framework. The International Science Council report “A Guide to SDG Interactions: from Science to Implementation” further stresses the importance of data as a driver for policy-making, by highlighting the need to observe and evaluate the dynamic interaction between different SDGs when formulating implementation policies through an integrated and trans-disciplinary scientific approach. Ensuring sustainable development therefore calls for innovative ideas utilizing new and multiple sources of data and information. This has been made possible by the rapid digitization of society in the past decades. Mass quantities of data on human activities and behaviors and on environmental changes – “Big Data” – have created enormous value and resulted in inventive services that enable the inclusion of digital concepts in a wide variety BIG EARTH DATA 2021, VOL. 5, NO. 3, 259–262 https://doi.org/10.1080/20964471.2021.1962621