On Monday, The United Nations entered into a partnership with Google for monitoring impacts of human activity on global ecosystems by using sophisticated online tools.
The partnership’s aim is to develop a platform to enable governments, NGO’s and the public to track specific environment-related development targets with a user-friendly Google front-end, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a statement.
“We will only be able to solve the biggest environmental challenges of our time if we get the data right,”Head of UNEP, Erik Solheim said.
“UN Environment is excited to be partnering with Google, to make sure we have the most sophisticated online tools to track progress, identify priority areas for our action, and bring us one step closer to a sustainable world,” he said.
The launch of the partnership took place during the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development at the UN headquarters in New York.
Its initial focus is on fresh-water ecosystems including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes. These ecosystems account for 0.01 per cent of the world’s water. However, they provide habitat for almost 10 per cent of the world’s known species. Evidence points to a rapid loss of freshwater biodiversity.
Periodically, Google will produce geospatial maps and data on water-related ecosystems by employing massive parallel Cloud computing technology.
To assess the extent of change occurring to waterbodies, satellite imagery and statistics will be generated. They will also be made freely accessible for ensuring nations have the opportunity to track changes, prevent and reverse ecosystem loss.
Advocacy and capacity building activities, the development of partnerships with organisations like the European Commission”s Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the NASA are other areas of collaboration.
There are hopes that the partnership establishes a platform for open-source data and analysis of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in the long term.
“This partnership announcement builds on a common shared vision between our organisations,” said Rebecca Moore, Director, Google Earth, Earth Engine and Earth Outreach. “We are excited to enable all countries with equal access to the latest technology and information in support of global climate action and sustainable development,” Ms Moore said.
