Policy initiatives over the last three decades have worked to limit the impacts of global warming, reverse land degradation, stop the loss of biodiversity, protect finite natural resources, and reduce risks associated with environmental disasters. Tracking progress toward achieving the aims of these initiatives is a complex task, requiring integrated work across multiple research domains, the deployment of data and technologies including sophisticated observation instruments and networks, and coordinated modeling experiments to continually improve the scientific state of the art. Globally interconnected data and analytical infrastructures based on open standards are essential to the success of this work because they enable the translation of raw geospatial data to reliable indicators used in benchmarking and decision-making.

The purpose of this SWG is:

The standardization promoted by this SWG will support transparency in international reporting indicators which rely on geospatial data, referred to as Geospatial Reporting Indicators, enable interoperability between local, national, and regional geospatial data infrastructures and analytical applications to facilitate reporting processes, and help build shared understandings of which approaches work in a range of global contexts through robust comparisons. The community consensus-based process used in the development of OGC Standards and standards-based technologies will promote inclusiveness and representation of the global community in shaping GRIs.

There are many GRIs in use by international organizations, private sector consortia, and national governments, some of which are specific to one or more sectors, some which target a specific factor such as impacts of methane emissions, and some which cover multiple factors and are sector agnostic. To make progress, the GRI SWG plans to assess the importance of these indicators to set an area of focus for one or more years, to be reviewed annually and voted on by the SWG committee. It is anticipated that the focus area will evolve over time in response to opportunities and progress made on standards development. An initial focus area is defined in section 3 of this charter.

The market for services supporting reporting against global indicators has grown significantly over the past decade. The State and Trends of Spatial Finance 2023 report from the Spatial Finance Initiative summarizes a few key data points, noting: "Tech Nation’s 2022 Climate Tech report records, 44,595 companies developing technology solutions to tackle the climate crisis, a four-fold increase since 2010, collectively raising $111bn in growth capital in 2021. CommerzVentures' Climate Fintech report found that climate fintech start-ups raised $2.9bn in 2022, 2.4x more than in all of 2021.” Their report highlights physical climate risk analytics, environmental markets monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) solutions, and nature and biodiversity analytics as strong growth areas. These trends are likely to be augmented by new schemes in the near term, notably including the extension of the EU’s Regulation on Deforestation-free Products through intensified engagement with partner countries to launch the global “Team Europe Initiative on Deforestation-free Value Chains” with new financial support of EUR 70M, as announced in at COP28, together with California’s Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253) making climate emissions disclosure mandatory and 'SB 261', requiring climate-related financial risks disclosure.

The scale and growth of the market suggests significant global demand for geospatial services that support reporting against global schemes, both related to corporate financial disclosures and targets for progress against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). However, at present, the lack of standardization in geospatial data makes it difficult to address potential greenwashing and ensure data integrity and accountability through robust diligence, monitoring, and verification processes that rely on geospatial data. It is likewise challenging to analyze and compare risks to physical assets using diverse geospatial data to characterize their changing contexts over time ^[1]. A key part of the business value proposition of this SWG is to transform data silos within reporting indicator applications into interoperable and federated collaborative solutions, enhancing the value chain and resulting information products.

Beyond the financial value, the development of consensus-based standards for GRIs can help to realize significant public benefits. These public benefits may include increasing the confidence of communities in claims made by private and government organizations regarding actions taken to address climate change, leading to improved communication, which in turn facilitates community engagement in decision making processes. GRIs may also include improvements in the equity of assessments based on reporting indicators, again increasing public trust and improving a community’s sense of belonging and wellbeing. Better targeted interventions which deploy resources to the communities and landscapes where they are most needed can also provide these benefits.

This SWG’s initial focus area is the standardization of GRIs associated with Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) ^[2], as defined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15.3.1 ^[3]. LDN was prioritized as a focus area because work to achieve LDN acknowledges and facilitates a broad range of development activities by incorporating them into a whole-of-landscape land use planning framework that balances development with conservation and restoration activities to maintain or reduce the extent of degraded land. It therefore will enable this SWG to engage a diverse pool of stakeholders whose works' scope includes LDN and may also include reporting under other frameworks. Demonstrably achieving Land Degradation Neutrality is valuable to national governments, together with regional governments, public agencies, and supporting organizations, because it helps countries meet their UN SDG commitments (specifically Target 15.3), providing an incentive for engagement by these stakeholders groups.

A strong foundation for this initial focus area exists. Consortium building is well advanced, with significant international buy-in for LDN demonstrated at the recent LDN Global Dialogue Forum (Cape Town, October 2023), which attracted applications from 59 teams in 40 countries. Technical foundations have been set in place. Documentation of current data standards for geospatial data used in United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) national reporting was carried out through an analysis of the UNCCD reporting platform (Performance Review and Assessment of Implementation System = PRAIS) ^[4]. Coordination with the key domain organization driving the reporting indicator development has been agreed in principle. The work proposed under the GRI SWG will be coordinated with the next phase of the GEO-LDN Flagship initiative. The GEO-LDN Flagship will provide access to datasets and analytical tools to measure, plan and monitor LDN. Its objectives are to provide the LDN community with a ‘federated’ suite of datasets and analytical tools that enable users to appropriately assess land degradation consistent with the Good Practice Guidance (GPG) ^[5], seamlessly transfer and translate results between phases of the integrated land use planning process, and monitor the effectiveness of remediation activities on land condition. Coordination of standards for data quality, and for the accessibility and function of analytical tools, are essential steps towards these objectives.

While some of the endeavors related to LDN have benefited from international coordination and funding under the umbrella of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, LDN initiative, the Paris Agreement (PA) on climate change, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), and other framework agreements, many still rely on uncoordinated national or international projects, resulting in a proliferation of incompatible, short-lived initiatives. This SWG is positioned to enhance the effectiveness of GRIs related to LDN to optimize the ongoing collaborative activity of the international community. The added value is meaningful: reducing wasted time and energy, discouraging the proliferation of solo technological initiatives solving the same simple problems, and enabling work on more complex issues.

Beyond the focus on data, underpinning information systems like Climate Resilience Information Systems (CRIS) can be operationalized more effectively when interoperability among the separate services are ensured. Realizing this benefit requires standardization of services following the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) ^[6]. Beside FAIR, the principles of TRUST (Transparency, Responsibility, User focus, Sustainability, and Technology) ^[7] and CARE (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics) ^[8] for indigenous data governance need to be considered when standardizing GRIs.

Many national or regional CRISs are already operational and the work of this SWG will enhance their capacity to provide a value chain from raw data to usable information. Development of GRI standards will also enable further nations and regions to develop compatible systems which leverage standardized GRIs for LDN planning, monitoring, and reporting. Work on LDN related indicators will provide a starting point to develop appropriate framework standards and principles for a suite of GRIs.

The Scope of Work of the GRI SWG encompasses the following.

A detailed work program defining the scopes, beside the initial focus, will be defined by the SWG under the lead of the elected chairs.

In its first phase, focused on LDN, the SWG will deliver:

The SWG will promote the establishment of a COSI Pilot to develop further deliverables including the following

[x] RAND-Royalty Free

[ ] RAND for fee

This SWG aims to attract participants from a range of policy and industry-led reporting indicator communities. It is anticipated that the group’s initial composition will include a concentration of members interested in policy-led reporting and organizations connected to the UN reporting mechanisms, given the initial focus on LDN.

This SWG will work closely with the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) and its member agencies. Experts from the CEOS ARD Oversight Group as well as OGC members from space agencies, including NASA and ESA, are expected to participate in the SWG. In addition, other geospatial data providers, geoscientists, computer scientists, and software engineers from academia, industry, and government will be interested in assisting with the development of reporting indicators and the LDN Standard in the first instance through this SWG.

This draft charter will be presented to the Climate Resilience DWG with a request for endorsement.

References are provided directly in the text of this charter.