Based on ongoing research at UBDC, this blog series on 'Sustainability Data' presents research results, debates and emerging insights intended to stimulate further discussion and add value to researchers, policymakers, city managers, and government officials in general, who deal with these questions on a daily level.

This first blog starts at the macro-level, presenting a pilot analysis of three UK cities and a UK nation’s approaches to localised SDG reporting.

"Local-level data can accelerate progress towards the 2030 Agenda. At the Global Goals Week, the High Impact Initiative on the Power of Data was launched. Emerging data types like Big Data and Digital Footprint Data are key for urban policy-making. Cities produce vast amounts of data, and over 500 cities have made their data openly accessible.

Rio de Janeiro recently launched a data lake that includes data from a popular navigation app. This data will be used to inform the municipal secretariat responsible for highway maintenance and improve public transport across the city. This kind of data initiative helps to "leave no one behind" in achieving SDG 11.2 (convenient access to public transport for all).

Similarly, an app developed as part of the Waterproofing Data project provides valuable insights for policymakers to address flood risk. This data can also be used to measure the cities' progress towards SDG 13 (action to combat climate change and its impacts).

Making sense of data for urban policymaking is challenging. Data come from different sources with different definitions. For example, what is "convenient" or "high risk" access to public transport? Data also vary in frequency, recency, reach, granularity, and boundaries. This makes it difficult to integrate data and compare progress across cities."

Read the full blog on the Urban Big Data Centre webpage

First published: 26 September 2023

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