The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, subscribed by all the United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared direction towards a sustainable thriving of the humankind and the planet. The Agenda lists 17 goals, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which state a path to be followed by all the countries within 2030 for a global development. Earth orbiting satellites and especially Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites lie in a privileged location to monitor our planet. This allows Earth observation (EO) missions to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, as extensively recognised by both space agencies and the UN. In this thesis, a new methodology is presented to provide agencies, governments and stakeholders a tool to assess the societal benefits of EO missions. The proposed approach aims at quantifying the social value rating of the missions through the achievement of the SDGs. For this purpose, nine services provided to Earth by EO missions have been identified: Built-up land (i.e. all kinds of man-made constructions), Agriculture, Wild nature, Geology, Limnology, Oceanography, Meteorology, Air Quality Monitoring and Hazards Monitoring. Following the work of Scalera et al., the evaluation of the social benefits is carried out by introducing four indices relating satellite payloads to these services, which are linked to the SDGs. The four indices focus on the payloads and orbit main characterising factors: temporal resolution, spatial resolution, spectral efficiency and Earth coverage. The dissertation is currently limited to repeating Sun-synchronous circular low Earth orbits, which represent the majority of EO missions, and both passive and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors are analysed. The investigation can also be rearranged as a tool to maximise the social outcome of a mission during its design phase. The model is applied to the Copernicus program and a few more missions, to assess their contribution to the achievement of the SDG2030. In general, passive instruments show a higher versatility in terms of social performances, while SARs gain better scores but focused on fewer goals. This thesis was part of the COMPASS project: “Control for orbit manoeuvring by surfing through orbit perturbations” (Grant agreement No 679086). This project is European Research Council (ERC) funded project under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research.
L'Agenda 2030 per lo sviluppo sostenibile, sottoscritta da tutti gli stati membri dell'Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite (ONU) nel 2015, propone un progetto condiviso di pace e prosperità per il pianeta e per gli esseri umani. L'Agenda elenca 17 obbiettivi, chiamati Obbiettivi di Sviluppo Sostenibile (OSS), che indicano un percorso da seguire per tutte le nazioni entro il 2030, al fine di perseguire un sviluppo globale sostenibile. I satelliti che orbitano intorno alla Terra, specialmente quelli nelle orbite basse, sono localizzati in una posizione privilegiata per il monitoraggio del pianeta. Questo permette alle missioni di osservazione della Terra di contribuire al raggiungimento degli Obbiettivi di Sviluppo Sostenibile, come ampiamente riconosciuto da varie agenzie spaziali e dalla stessa ONU. In questa tesi viene presentato un nuovo metodo per fornire alle agenzie spaziali, ai governi e alle parti interessate, uno strumento per valutare il ritorno sociale delle missioni di osservazione terrestre. L'obbiettivo di questa analisi è di quantificare il valore sociale delle missioni attraverso il contributo dato agli OSS. A questo scopo, nove servizi forniti dalle missioni di osservazione della Terra sono stati identificati: Built-up land (i.e. tutti i tipi di costruzioni artificiali), Agriculture, Wild nature, Geology, Limnology, Oceanography, Meteorology, Air Quality Monitoring and Hazards Monitoring. Proseguendo il lavoro di Scalera et al., la valutazione dei benefici sociali è stata effettuata tramite l'introduzione di quattro indici che relazionano gli strumenti dei satelliti a questi servizi, a loro volta collegati agli OSS. Questi quattro indici si focalizzano sui fattori caratterizzanti degli strumenti e dell'orbita del satellite: risoluzione temporale, risoluzione spaziale, efficienza spettrale e copertura terrestre. La tesi è attualmente limitata a orbite circolari basse eliosincrone, che rappresentano la maggioranza delle missioni di osservazione della Terra, e sono analizzati strumenti passivi e attivi (radar ad apertura sintetica). Lo studio può essere riadattato fornendo uno strumento di massimizzazione del ritorno sociale di una missione durante la sua fase di design. Il modello è applicato al programma Copernicus e alcune altre missioni, al fine di identificare il loro contributo agli OSS del 2030. In generale, gli strumenti passivi mostrano una maggiore versatilità in termini di rendimento sociale, mentre i acrshort{sar} possono ottenere punteggi superiori ma su un numero inferiore di obbiettivi. Questa tesi fa parte del progetto COMPASS: “Control for orbit manoeuvring by surfing through orbit perturbations” (Grant agreement No 679086), finanziato dall'European Research Council (ERC) nell'ambito della ricerca Horizon 2020 dell'Unione Europea.
Social benefits assessment of Earth observation missions through the sustainable development goals 2030
Zuliani, Chiara;SANTORO, VALERIO
2019/2020
Abstract
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, subscribed by all the United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared direction towards a sustainable thriving of the humankind and the planet. The Agenda lists 17 goals, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which state a path to be followed by all the countries within 2030 for a global development. Earth orbiting satellites and especially Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites lie in a privileged location to monitor our planet. This allows Earth observation (EO) missions to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, as extensively recognised by both space agencies and the UN. In this thesis, a new methodology is presented to provide agencies, governments and stakeholders a tool to assess the societal benefits of EO missions. The proposed approach aims at quantifying the social value rating of the missions through the achievement of the SDGs. For this purpose, nine services provided to Earth by EO missions have been identified: Built-up land (i.e. all kinds of man-made constructions), Agriculture, Wild nature, Geology, Limnology, Oceanography, Meteorology, Air Quality Monitoring and Hazards Monitoring. Following the work of Scalera et al., the evaluation of the social benefits is carried out by introducing four indices relating satellite payloads to these services, which are linked to the SDGs. The four indices focus on the payloads and orbit main characterising factors: temporal resolution, spatial resolution, spectral efficiency and Earth coverage. The dissertation is currently limited to repeating Sun-synchronous circular low Earth orbits, which represent the majority of EO missions, and both passive and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors are analysed. The investigation can also be rearranged as a tool to maximise the social outcome of a mission during its design phase. The model is applied to the Copernicus program and a few more missions, to assess their contribution to the achievement of the SDG2030. In general, passive instruments show a higher versatility in terms of social performances, while SARs gain better scores but focused on fewer goals. This thesis was part of the COMPASS project: “Control for orbit manoeuvring by surfing through orbit perturbations” (Grant agreement No 679086). This project is European Research Council (ERC) funded project under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/175474