GIDEON

GIDEON is an integrated public policy information portal that aims to measure the impact of COVID on various countries and its effect on economic and environmental terms. The countries that are able to contain COVID while keeping their economy afloat with minimal impact to the environment stand the best chance of sustainably bouncing back after this crisis.

How it Works

Newsfeeds, Google Mobility data, and COVID cases show the multi-dimensional impact of government-mandated lockdowns and other interventions on their societies. Not all governments applied lockdowns, and no two lockdowns were implemented the same way.

EO night lights and NO2 levels can nowcast the current impact, and forecast the likely outcome, of lockdowns on nations’ economies. No country can survive a permanent lockdown, and eventually, governments will have to ease their restrictions. Below is the general process for nowcasting and forecasting GDP data: 

• Satellite spectral data is downloaded from World View Earth Data on the NASA site for VIIRS data on night lights, and from Google Earth Engine for Sentinel-5p data on NO2;
• Spectral data is color extracted and converted into CSV to generate indices on night light and NO2 in target countries;
• Economic data on GDP is taken from various sources;
• GDP is modeled on night light and NO2 data.

Finally, various levels of human activity affect pollution levels around the world and it is possible to detect from EO which countries are keeping air quality under control as they bounce back from lockdown and managing infection rates. The data sourcing process is as follows:

• Human mobility raw datasets were taken from Google Mobility Report;
• COVID-19 global infection data is taken from Johns Hopkins University;
• NO2 data is taken from Sentinel-5p datasets;

Main Insights

We assessed 5 countries and ranked them as follows:

JP - Low: Relatively high mobility has not translated into significant GDP growth. COVID infection rates remain low.

SG - Low: Severe immobility of the population has resulted in modest GDP growth. Infection rates however are very high.

PH - Moderate: Moderately-High immobility due to strict lockdown measures still translate into relatively high GDP growth and very low growth rates in infections.

SW - Moderate-High: Very high mobility due to the absence of lockdown measures have resulted in low GDP growth and moderately high infection rates.

IT - High: Moderate mobility translates to very good prospects for GDP growth and very low infection rates. Italy however suffers from a very large infected population.

Overall we feel that Singapore and Japan seem to be the ideal templates to follow as they have contained COVID cases while restarting their economy with the least damage to the environment.

Impact

One constant challenge of economic data is its lagging nature. Meanwhile, Earth observations are a constant stream of insights available in real-time, and our goal with GIDEON is to show how public policymakers and economic planners can utilize satellite observation and mobility datasets to steer countries towards a sustainable future.