The International Council for Science (ICSU), along with the International Social Science Council (ISSC), have identified five challenges that could dramatically improve sustainable development, poverty reduction, and environmental protection.
The five Grand Challenges are:
- Forecasting—Improve the usefulness of forecasts of future environmental conditions and their consequences for people.
- Observing—Develop, enhance and integrate the observation systems needed to manage global and regional environmental change.
- Confining—Determine how to anticipate, recognize, avoid and manage disruptive global environmental change.
- Responding—Determine what institutional, economic and behavioural changes can enable effective steps toward global sustainability.
- Innovating—Encourage innovation (coupled with sound mechanisms for evaluation) in developing technological, policy and social responses to achieve global sustainability.
Geospatial technology plays a supporting role for most of these, and a critical role for some. You can read more about these challenges and issues of global change here.
