SDG 13 - Climate action | Space4Water Portal

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Climate change is now affecting every country on every continent. It is disrupting national economies and affecting lives, costing people, communities and countries dearly today and even more tomorrow. Weather patterns are changing, sea levels are rising, weather events are becoming more extreme and greenhouse gas emissions are now at their highest levels in history. Without action, the world’s average surface temperature is likely to surpass 3 degrees centigrade this century. The poorest and most vulnerable people are being affected the most.

Affordable, scalable solutions are now available to enable countries to leapfrog to cleaner, more resilient economies. The pace of change is quickening as more people are turning to renewable energy and a range of other measures that will reduce emissions and increase adaptation efforts. Climate change, however, is a global challenge that does not respect national borders. It is an issue that requires solutions that need to be coordinated at the international level to help developing countries move toward a low-carbon economy.

To strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, countries adopted the Paris Agreement at the COP21 in Paris, which went into force in November of 2016. In the agreement, all countries agreed to work to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees centigrade. As of April 2018, 175 parties had ratified the Paris Agreement and 10 developing countries had submitted their first iteration of their national adaptation plans for responding to climate change.

Climate Summit 2019

The Secretary-General will convene a Climate Summit in September 2019 to bring climate action to the top of the international agenda. Mr. Luis Alfonso de Alba, a former Mexican diplomat, will be his Special Envoy to lead its preparations.

The Summit will focus on the heart of the problem – the sectors that create the most emissions and the areas where building resilience could make the biggest difference – as well as provide leaders and partners the opportunity to demonstrate real climate action and showcase their ambition.

To read about the commitments that regions, cities, businesses, investors and civil society pledged during the Global Climate Action Summit in California, September 2018, click here.

Facts and Figures

As of April 2018, 175 parties had ratified the Paris Agreement and 168 parties had communicated their first nationally determined contributions to the UN framework convention on Climate Change Secretariat.
As of April 2018, 10 developing countries had successfully completed and submitted their first iteration of their national adaptation plans for responding to climate change.
Developed country parties continue to make progress towards the goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion annually by 2020 for mitigation actions.

Thanks to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change we know:

From 1880 to 2012, average global temperature increased by 0.85°C. To put this into perspective, for each 1 degree of temperature increase, grain yields decline by about 5 per cent. Maize, wheat and other major crops have experienced significant yield reductions at the global level of 40 megatons per year between 1981 and 2002 due to a warmer climate.
Oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished and sea level has risen.From 1901 to 2010, the global average sea level rose by 19 cm as oceans expanded due to warming and ice melted. The Arctic’s sea ice extent has shrunk in every successive decade since 1979, with 1.07 million km² of ice loss every decade
Given current concentrations and on-going emissions of greenhouse gases, it is likely that by the end of this century, the increase in global temperature will exceed 1.5°C compared to 1850 to 1900 for all but one scenario. The world’s oceans will warm and ice melt will continue. Average sea level rise is predicted as 24 – 30cm by 2065 and 40-63cm by 2100. Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions are stopped
Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) have increased by almost 50 per cent since 1990
Emissions grew more quickly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the three previous decades
It is still possible, using a wide array of technological measures and changes in behavior, to limit the increase in global mean temperature to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels
Major institutional and technological change will give a better than even chance that global warming will not exceed this threshold

* Acknowledging that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.

Space-based Technologies for SDG 13

Climate-related hazards can damage societies and economies worldwide. Satellites help monitor climate variables such as greenhouse gases, sea-level and deforestation. UNOOSA strengthens resilience to climate-related hazards and natural disasters, including by increasing access to space-based information for all countries through UN-SPIDER. Read more here.

SDG 13 Targets

Graphic displaying the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Graphic displaying the promotion of mechanisms for raising capacity for climate planning and management

Graphic displaying the strengthening of resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters

Graphic displaying the integration of climate change measures into policies and planning

Graphic displaying the building of knowledge and capacity to meet climate change

Learn more about the SDGs

Please describe how your professional (and/or personal) experience relates to space technologies and their applications to water resources management.

I am an expert in hydroinformatics, mainly involved in research projects and research supervision of MSc and PhD students. My research focusses on physically based models for inland waters (rivers and lakes). One of the major fields where modelling is used in water resources is flooding. In order to have adequate representation of floods, most models require large amounts of data, both for model building and model usage.

Interview with Prof. Hesham El-Askary

Prof. Hesham El-Askary works at Chapman University in the Earth Systems Science Data Solutions (ESsDs) lab. Here, he supervises students on the use of satellite earth observations for topics including agriculture, water resources, air quality and climate action, and makes use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Prof. El-Askary is researching natural and anthropogenic pollution’s influence on the environment and is particularly interested in the concept of “glocal” impact—how what’s happening globally in terms of climate affects us locally. He believes that one of the biggest challenges in implementing sustainable water management is the lack of data to monitor progress, and advocates for space technologies to mitigates this shortage.  

Space technologies for drought monitoring and management

The impacts of climate change are ever more apparent. The frequency and scale of devastation and destruction of weather hazards are on an increasing trend. According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report (IPCC, 2021) climate change is intensifying the water cycle. This will cause more intense droughts in many regions. Moreover, water-related extremes impact the quality of life disproportionately strong. Drought accounts for 25% of all losses from weather-related disasters in the United States of America (Hayes et al., 2012).

The water cycle from space: the central role of satellite-informed models in corporate water management

Water in the atmosphere, in the soil, in rivers and oceans is in continuous exchange via the global water cycle. This is commonly thought to be the circular movement of water that evaporates from the Earth's surface, rises on warm updrafts into the atmosphere, and condenses into clouds. It is transported by the wind as water vapour, and eventually falls back to the Earth’s surface as rain or snow.

The impact of space-based internet communications constellations on water

Imagine a world where your internet is delivered not through cables or cell towers but a vast swarm of orbiting satellites. That world is a very different place. Political borders are no longer communication boundaries. Your phone works just as well in the US as it does in Nigeria and Australia and Cambodia. You can communicate with people on the other side of the planet near the physical limits of information transmission, unconstrained by slow cable networks.

Making Irrigation Decisions from Space: Utilizing a New Thermal Remote Sensing Satellite to Protect Food Security

ECOSTRESS Map of Central American Dry Corridor

Have you ever questioned if there would be enough food at the store for everyone in your community? If you frequent a grocery store or market, probably not. Every Sunday I go to the grocery store with a list of foods I’ll need for the week and no contingency plan for what to do if there isn’t enough. If something is out of stock, I’ll just go to the next grocery store down the road. We take it for granted that certain foods will always be available for us to purchase. However, many people do not have the luxury of a reliable food source.

Wetlands conservation: How satellite observation supports sustainable wetland management

Pelicans in the Danube Delta, Photo by Florin Tomozei.

On 2 February 2020, we celebrate World Wetlands Day to raise global awareness about the vital role of wetlands for people and our planet. This year’s edition highlights the connection between water, wetlands, and life.

Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science data for water resources management

The provision of water resources is one of the most fundamental ecosystem services . An acute scarcity of water data in both, the spatial and temporal domains in many regions prompts the urgency to assess risks related to water such as water quality decline, floods and droughts. Remote sensing does provide us with relevant data for water resources monitoring, but this data still needs to be validated with in-situ observations and measurements.

Remote sensing in managing, maintaining, and understanding coral reef ecosystems

Coral reefs provide integral services to social, economic, and ecological systems. They support more than 500 million livelihoods worldwide and account for 15% of gross domestic product in more than 20 countries. A quarter of all marine species on planet Earth, representing 28 of the 35 animal phyla, can be found in coral reefs, and novel compounds derived from these organisms provide numerous useful medicinal applications.

Space-Based Radioglaciology: Refining Climate Models and Monitoring Ice

About 40% of the World’s population lives within 100 km of the coast (United Nations 2017). Sea levels are on the rise around the World and the trend is accelerating every year. The UN, countless international organizations and national agencies are working hard every year to support the efforts of climate scientists to accurately model our changing climate. The role of ice in shaping the Earth’s seas is indisputable. As continental ice melts and as ice sheets break off from continental shelves and fall into the sea, more and more coastal communities are threatened.

Arctic lakes from space

A hidden secret that becomes water: Monitoring Patagonian Glacier Retreat

15 km2 glacier retreat in the last 35 years visualized on map.

It was not long ago, in 1916, that the explorer Padre De Agostini surveyed part of the topography of the Escondidos glaciers (“hidden glaciers”, in English) in Patagonia (De Agostini, 1949). Today, space technology such as NASA’s ICESat Missions and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data, allow to monitor changes in glaciers over time.

Women, water and space: The first geospatial rally for women in rural aqueducts

Can you imagine a group of young women empowering other women using geospatial technology? From July 10 to 13 July 2019 in the First Geospatial Rally for Women in Rural Aqueducts took place, where 30 women from very different contexts met with the same goal, to build an empowering space, in the Nicoya Campus (north of Costa Rica) of the University of Costa Rica (UCR). This was done with the intention to learn from each other.

United Nations/Ghana/PSIPW - 5th International conference on the use of space technology for water resources management

From 10 to 13 May 2022, the United Nations Officer for Outer Space Affairs organized the 5th International conference on the use of space technology for water resources management. The conference was hosted in a hybrid format in Accra, Ghana, by the University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani on behalf of the Government of Ghana. The event was attended by several senior government representatives of the host country including Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, the Honorary Minister of Education Dr.

Water management in local communities led by women

Women sitting on desk in front of screen holding a controller

When we think about geospatial technology, many of us imagine satellites for Earth observation and navigation, drones, and complex sensors used to collect information from the terrestrial surface. We also believe that most of the people capable of developing applications using geospatial data should hold a science-related Master or Ph.D. degree. The previous statement could not be further from the truth. Advances in technology have made access to geospatial technology possible for everybody.

Towards new applications of spaceborne technology on flood protection

Recently, in July 2021, destructive and deadly floods occurred in Western Europe. The estimated insured losses only in Germany could approach 5 billion Euros (AIR Worldwide, 2021). However, the total amount of the damage is currently not foreseeable due to the variety and complexity of the damage patterns and the unbelievable extent of the disaster. It seems the socio-economic losses will dramatically increase and break a new record in the insurance industry after evaluating the complete record of damages’ reports (see Figure 1).

Les lacs arctiques vus de l´espace

Traduit de l'anglais par Martin Sarret

Monitoring Precipitation from Space

Global Precipitation Measurements Constellations

In recent years, with the rapid development of satellite-based Earth observation technologies, more and more quasi-global satellite products observe the Earth.

Floods in Sudan - Space-based Flood Monitoring to Support Disaster Risk Management

In 2019, floods caused 43.5% of all deaths due to natural disasters and thereby represent the deadliest type of disaster with an increasing number of events compared to previous years (CRED, 2019). Floods furthermore lead to the highest number of people affected compared to other disasters as they affect human activities and the economy (CRED, 2019; Elagib et al. 2019).

Leveraging space technologies to monitor plastic pollution in oceans

Figure 1: “Dolphin plastic bag at Fernando de Noronha”, Source: CC by Jedimentat44

Several ongoing projects are trying to detect plastic pollution in oceans by using Space technology

The ocean is where life began. It is home to the majority of the Earth’s plants and animals. However, there is currently another habitant endangering all species living under and above water. Humans included. The habitant is called “Plastic”. Plastic’s largest market is packaging designed for immediate disposal (Sigogneau-Russell, 2003).

Urban Water Scarcity: How data from NASA’s GRACE-FO Mission can be used for (near) real time water management

As population becomes larger the demand for water soars, including water needed for domestic, industrial and municipal uses (Mogelgaard 2011). One example of that, is India, where on 20 June 2019 the city of Chennai almost run out of water. Satellite images show the extent of the water shortage in the city (figure 1). While people are queuing up to get water from water trucks that transfer water to the city, the greatest struggle is taking place in the city’s municipal buildings and businesses. Hospitals are facing the threat of not having enough water to treat patients and to clean equipment, and businesses are forced to shut down and wait until the crisis is over.

Interview with Ruvimbo Samanga

Ruvimbo Samanga, despite her age, has vast experience in the law, space, and water sectors. She is presently involved in a regional study on the integration of GIS and statistical information in Zimbabwe, working towards the promulgation of GIS standards and legislation to support a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). Ruvimbo is excited by the merging of sustainable development for water management with space technologies because it is scalable, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective over the long run. Ruvimbo feels strongly that space technologies have a role to play in policy and legal affairs, and also sees potential especially in the use of emerging technologies such as block chain, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing.

Interview with Padmi Ranasinghe, Doctoral student in Urban Planning and Public Policy at the University of Texas (UT) - Arlington

Padmi Ranasinghe doing field work at Sinharaja Evergreen rain forest

Padmi is currently reading for her Ph.D. focusing on Nature-based Solutions (NbS) for climate change risk reduction and resilience cities. She believes NbS can reduce hydro-meteorological hazards such as floods, droughts, and landslides in the long run. It is a strategy to minimize the gaps in decarbonizing and reducing greenhouse gases and a path to Net-zero cities. NbS, are actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural and modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, benefiting people and nature (IUCN & World Bank, 2022). Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA), ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR), ecosystem-based mitigation (EbM), and green infrastructure are some branches under the umbrella of NbS. NbS include conserving forests, mangroves, and wetland ecosystems, halting deforestation, increasing reforestation, climate-smart agriculture, and opening green spaces. According to her, space technology is integral to planning, monitoring, and analysis. Space technology today is so advanced that it can capture and predict changes in the water cycle, climate change variables and so forth. Remote sensing data and satellite-derived information are essential in obtaining accurate data on a specific site anywhere on the Earth's surface. Most recently, she has been involved in projects utilizing urban NbS such as the conservation of Ramsar-Colombo to mitigate urban floods and adapt to climate change. To conduct wetland inventories, space-based data and GIS techniques can be utilized to detect the presence of wetlands and/or water in wetlands. Though there can be some challenges encountered such as limited coverage of specific areas within the wetland, clouds often hiding images, and the low resolution of data making it difficult to differentiate floral species. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) can provide enhanced accuracy and consistency in measuring wetlands, as well as the presence of water in wetlands, using space technologies. Data and technologies from space contribute to watershed management, sediment measurements and many other environmental aspects.

Interview with Webster Gumindoga, PhD Student at University of Twente and Lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe

Webster is a PhD student at the University of Twente’s Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation. His PhD thesis is entitled: Observing Zambezi Basin from Space: Satellite based bias correction for hydrological modelling: Webster is also lecturer and researcher at the University of Zimbabwe’s Construction and Civil Engineering Department. He is the coordinator of the regional master’s degree programme in Integrated Water Resources Management, a capacity building programme for the water sector in Southern and Eastern Africa. His research interests are in the areas of GIS and Earth Observation applications in water resources management, sanitation, water quality and disaster management. He is also a consultant who has been seconded as a GIS mentor to many government institutions and developmental partners in Southern Africa. Webster has over 60 publications, numerous regional and international conference papers in areas of spatial and quantitative hydrology, water resources management, quantification of water cycle components and feedbacks between climate, land-uses, water cycles and other societal influences. Webster is the Chief Editor of the Journal of Environmental Management in Zimbabwe (JEMZ).

Interview with Malek Abdulfailat

Malek Abdulfailat has over 10 years of experience mapping and coordinating water-related projects in Palestine, Israel, and Jordon. He is currently leading a new consultation firm working on three projects: Green businesses and Water, EcoTourism and Water, and Solid waste management through women leaders. He has experience using several different space based technologies including spatial analysis and water elevation mapping. He’s realises the importance of space based technologies and believes that one factor needed to unlock their true potential is by increasing access to such tools and by better communicating their potential to policy makers.

Interview with Joshua Ubah, Geospatial Environmental Engineer

Joshua is a Master’s student in Tropical Hydrogeology and Environmental Engineering at Technische Universität of Darmstadt. His interest is focused on hydrogeological processes, groundwater modelling, application of remote sensing and GIS in environmental studies, water management and climate change. He also works as a graduate Intern at AgriWatch BV, a company that applies geospatial solutions for precision Agriculture. As a graduate intern, he applies his interdisciplinary knowledge in developing smart-farming solutions using space-based technologies to farmers in the Twente region of the Netherlands. He deploys satellite imagery, field studies and machine learning algorithms to predict the effect of climate change on arable crops. He also utilizes precipitation data to predict rainfall events to aid farmers in determining planting and harvesting periods. Joshua earned a bachelor’s degree in Geological Sciences, his bachelor’s thesis research aimed at carrying out paleoenvironmental reconstruction using paleocurrent indicators of water flow and direction, and application of ArcGIS to produce maps. Currently, he is working on his master’s thesis with emphasis on the impact of the ancient climate on the paleoenvironment particularly on vegetation, where he tries to research plants response to long-term greenhouse periods and short-term warming events on various timescales throughout Earth's history. His research interests revolve around the application of space technologies in providing solutions and tackling climate change.