SDGs and COVID-19

This challenge invites you to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by looking at the current and ongoing change in the monitoring indicators of the UN SDGs using Earth observation/remote sensing and global Earth system model-derived analysis products.

Earth’s Health Analysis

Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced air pollution, and some lessons can be learned if we analyze data from before and after it. Since we can’t say that every decision maker can interpret quantitative data about emissions, we’ve decided to develop the Earth’s Health Analysis platform, where anyone can have access to space agencies data about many greenhouse gases emissions, actions can be planned quicker and measures taken sooner by interested parties, aiming to reach United Nations’ SDGs 3 and 11.

How We Addressed This Challenge

Our platform provide analysis of data in a way that's easy to understand and to keep track of what is going on with the United Nations’ SDGs number 3 and 11 metrics when compared with satellite data obtained from NASA’s earth observation data “Earthdata” measurements.

How We Developed This Project

Our project started when we chose the Challenge #6 SDGs and COVID-19 to work with. Each one of us raised problems related to all the SDGs available in the Challenge and then filtered some to be solved. For the most common problem we found, air pollution, all the creativity available was gathered. The solution we presented was a way of displaying the information to the general public knowledge, to support local managers and public agencies to track, quantify, and visualize the impact of COVID-19 on SDGs 3 (health and well-being) and 11 (sustainable cities and communities) through values of emission of air pollutants. We came up with a platform where we would provide access to the analysed data for easy visualization and understanding on how big is the impact of human activity is on air quality. In the period when we were forced to stay home to avoid mass transmission of the COVID-19, the levels of air pollution worldwide decreased significantly, showing that to reduce usage of vehicles, by working at home-office style, for example, is possible and will positively affect the Earth’s health and, in a direct way, ours.

Project Demo

https://streamable.com/zyowoz

Data & Resources

Images:

Air pollutant emissions before and after COVID-19:

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146362/airborne-nitrogen-dioxide-plummets-over-china

Wuhan Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) emission graph:

https://so2.gsfc.nasa.gov/no2/pix/htmls/Wuhan_data.html

Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) emission around the globe before and after quarantine:

https://so2.gsfc.nasa.gov/no2/no2_index.html

Data:

Global SDGs Database:

https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/database/

Carbon monoxide (CO) emission by location in 2019 and 2020:

http://ftp.asc-csa.gc.ca/users/OpenData_DonneesOuvertes/pub/MOPITT/

Nitrogen monoxide (NO2)
- data from AVDC (Nasa): https://avdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/

- data from Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (Nasa): https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/OMNO2_003/summary

CO2 virtual science environment https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov/download/?dataset=ACOSv3.5_lite&product=LITE

OSIRIS Data impact in human activities and natural phenomena on the environment and climate: https://research-groups.usask.ca/osiris/data-products.php#Download

COVID-19 Data Resources

http://www.data4sdgs.org/resources/covid-19-resources

COVID-19 Data Pathfinder

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/pathfinders/covid-19

Articles:

CarbonBrief (2020, February 19) Analysis: Coronavirus has temporarily reduced China’s CO2 emissions by a quarter. <https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-coronavirus-has-temporarily-reduced-chinas-co2-emissions-by-a-quarter> Accessed February 26, 2020.

SDG https://www.unsdsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ICTSDG_InterimReport_Web.pdf

Polution goes back to normal in China https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3050527/chinas-capital-shrouded-air-pollution-despite-reduced

Earth observations in support of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

https://www.earthobservations.org/documents/publications/201703_geo_eo_for_2030_agenda.pdf

Tags
#BestMissionConcept #Software #ODS #NASA #MitigationOfAirPolution #sdgs2030 #healtheworld #HomeOffice #sdg3 #sdg11 #sdgs #sdgsandcovid19 #spaceappscovid19challenge #satellitesdata
Global Judging
This project was submitted for consideration during the Space Apps Global Judging process.