The earth is becoming more and more ＂transparent＂ in the era of big data. What are the mysteries hidden？
Earth model in Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Reporter Guo Jingyuan photo
Recently, the China delegation attending the 74th UN General Assembly formally submitted four documents to the UN. Among them, the Report on Global Big Data Supporting Sustainable Development Goals compiled by China Academy of Sciences shows China’s exploration and practice of using global big data technology to support the implementation of the 2030 sustainable development agenda and policy decisions.
With the rapid development of science and technology, the blue planet of the earth is becoming more and more "transparent" in the fine network woven with big data. Recently, China Academy of Sciences officially released "Report on Global Big Data Supporting Sustainable Development Goals" (referred to as "Report"). What’s the mystery in the report? Please follow the Economic Daily reporter to find out.
Focus on new methods and accumulate new data
In 2015, 193 Member States of the United Nations adopted "Changing Our World: Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2030", and countries around the world actively implemented the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the increasingly severe global problems.
However, Guo Huadong, head of the Earth Big Data Science Project and academician of China Academy of Sciences, admitted that the monitoring of the implementation process of SDGs is facing arduous challenges. Among them, the serious shortage of indicator data is one of the main challenges in monitoring SDGs: the imperfect and inconsistent data statistical system and the lack of indicator system are the key reasons for the lack of data and low quality. Therefore, it is still a difficult problem to ensure data reliability and scientifically establish SDGs evaluation index system.
Guo Huadong showed a set of data to reporters: among the 17 sustainable development goals, 169 specific goals and more than 230 indicators of the sustainable development agenda in 2030, only 45% were assessed with methods and data, 39% were assessed with methods and data, and 16% were assessed without methods and data. "It is the most urgent task for the United Nations to achieve a breakthrough in the evaluation of indicators with methods, no data, no methods and no data."
"The evaluation of indicators mainly depends on the investigation of statistical departments in various countries. However, the traditional means of statistical investigation is insufficient in the timeliness, spatial resolution and cost of indicator evaluation, which has been widely recognized around the world." Chen Xiang, a researcher at the Institute of Aerospace Information, China Academy of Sciences, told reporters that some countries are rich in agricultural resources, but because of the lack of methods to evaluate the agricultural situation, they have no food to eat. For example, mango trees in Mozambique are all over the country, but the mango resources are still unclear and have not been effectively utilized.
In this regard, Chinese scientists have stepped forward and aimed at "Earth Big Data" to carry out scientific research. "As an important aspect of scientific and technological innovation, big data is bringing new research methods and means to scientific research, which is expected to promote the emergence of a new research paradigm." Guo Huadong said that Earth Big Data is massive, multi-source, heterogeneous, multi-temporal, multi-dimensional, highly coupled, non-stationary and unstructured, and is becoming a new key to understanding the Earth, a new engine for knowledge discovery and a new means of decision support.
On January 1, 2018, China Academy of Sciences officially launched the Class A strategic pilot science and technology project "Earth Big Data Science Project", which is dedicated to building a platform for sharing big data and cloud services covering resources, environment, biology, ecology and other fields, and promoting technological innovation in the field of earth big data and major breakthroughs and scientific discoveries in earth system science. The Report on Global Big Data Supporting Sustainable Development Goals is the result of more than one year of special implementation.
Guo Huadong introduced that the Report selected a number of typical cases for in-depth study by focusing on specific goals such as zero hunger, clean drinking water and sanitation facilities, sustainable cities and communities, underwater organisms and terrestrial organisms, and the data analysis results presented can provide useful reference for other countries to implement the 2030 Agenda and provide China’s solutions for solving more global and regional sustainable development problems.
Typical case interpretation of scientific basis
Earlier, IUCN lowered the endangered level of our national treasure giant panda from "endangered" to "vulnerable" according to its own evaluation criteria. Where did the basis for this judgment come from? Is the giant panda really safe?
In this issue of the Report, the answer is given. According to the Report, from 1976 to 2013, the population of giant pandas increased, but the habitat since 2001 was smaller and more fragmented than when giant pandas were listed as endangered species in 1988. "Therefore, it is unreasonable to reduce the endangered level of giant pandas simply on the basis of population size. The assessment of endangered category needs to integrate both population and habitat factors in order to carry out protection more objectively." Guo Huadong said.
For example, where is the best place for friends to enjoy public transport services conveniently and quickly? In terms of sustainable cities and communities, the Report points out that citizens in Macao, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing have the most convenient access to public transport, and the proportion of public space in Beijing is the highest in the country. The average proportion of people in all provinces in China who can use public transport conveniently is 64.28%, among which the eastern region is generally higher than the central and western regions and the southern provinces are generally higher than the northern provinces. From the scale of prefecture-level cities, the proportion of people who can easily use public transportation in densely populated cities is generally higher than that in sparsely populated cities.
In terms of clean drinking water and sanitation facilities, the Report shows that the surface water quality in China improved slightly in 2017 compared with that in 2016, and the surface water quality in the western region was generally better than that in the eastern region, with the surface water quality in Xinjiang and Tibet being the best. After years of continuous treatment, the quality of surface water in China has been significantly improved, but some eastern provinces and cities still need to further improve their treatment level.
In this way, 12 research cases about China are presented in this issue of the Report. In addition, the project also carried out in-depth research on data and methods for the global urbanization process, glacier degradation in high Asia, and national water resources situation in Africa and Central Asia.
For example, the impact of global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration on climate change should be assessed to strengthen education and publicity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning. "We can see that the annual increase of global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration mainly comes from man-made emissions. The occurrence of extreme climate has also enhanced carbon dioxide emissions in some terrestrial ecological areas, leading to an increase in interannual incremental fluctuations. " In this regard, Guo Huadong suggested that while controlling man-made carbon dioxide emissions, we should also scientifically repair and manage sensitive terrestrial ecosystems to reduce the impact of extreme climate on ecosystems.
Guo Huadong told reporters that the SDGs assessment progress shown in the Report provides a solid scientific basis for supporting UN agencies to promote sustainable development-related cooperation in the future, and supporting countries related to the Belt and Road Initiative to build a more perfect sustainable development target assessment system.
March towards the goal of sustainable development
Practice has proved that earth big data, as a new scientific methodology, has great application value and can provide monitoring and evaluation services for sustainable development goals in China and the vast number of developing countries and regions.
Guo Huadong said that the sustainable development goals of the United Nations and China’s national development strategy are mutually supportive. This issue of the Report is a scientific and technological innovation platform for China to serve the sustainable development goals of the United Nations, a concrete contribution to the realization of the sustainable development goals by using big earth data, and a realistic case in which China implements a technology promotion mechanism to promote the realization of the sustainable development goals, including data methods, which can be popularized in other countries.
The "Earth Big Data Science Project" project takes a longer view. Guo Huadong bluntly said that the ultimate goal of the project is to build an international earth big data science center. These include: launching CASEarth small satellites to improve data acquisition capabilities; Build a basic platform for earth big data cloud services and improve data processing capabilities; Build a digital geoscience platform to improve decision support ability; Monitoring and evaluation of SDGs indicators in global, regional, national and typical regions will be realized around the Belt and Road Initiative and beautiful China.
"Special projects can constantly give full play to their own characteristics and advantages, take the technology promotion mechanism as the purpose, invest in high-quality and precise scientific and technological strength, and achieve innovation in many aspects such as data sources, methodologies, implementation cases and decision support for sustainable development goals, and provide more reliable data basis and new research theories and methods for major issues related to sustainable development goals." Guo Huadong said.
Promoting the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has become the core task in the field of global development. "More and more countries, regions, organizations and enterprises are participating in it and working together to promote the UN’s sustainable development goals." Zhang Yaping, vice president of China Academy of Sciences, said that in the future, the special project of "Earth Big Data Science Project" will continue to carry out research on sustainable development goals, deepen cooperation inside and outside the institute, at home and abroad, strengthen the integration of relevant research results, and strive for more scientific and technological workers to join in and make greater contributions to the UN Agenda 2030. (Economic Daily China Economic Net reporter Guo Jingyuan)