Defining the pathway to SDG-ready Earth Observation (EO) data for SDG indicator 6.3.2 reporting through a transboundary pilot

The Mission statement of the EO Workstream is “Enabling EO of water
for the benefit of all”. Earth observation represents a transformative tool
for advancing global water quality monitoring, playing a crucial role in
building a smart water society. Satellites equipped with sensors orbit
Earth, providing insights into surface water extent, depth, groundwater
detection, and biogeochemical properties. The spatial continuity and
global coverage offered by Earth observation (EO) products serve as a
valuable asset, overcoming limitations in in-situ monitoring capabilities.
However, EO's dependence on available and suitable in-situ measurements remains a fundamental barrier to the delivery of globally validated datasets, and hence in situ and EO communities share the benefits of more strategic in situ monitoring and align their goals to reflect this interdependence. EO also has the profound potential to level the playing field in terms of water data access, since a vast amount of EO data is free to access and with relatively lower resource costs. The effective utilization of EO, however, demands significant computational
resources and expertise. This group is a unique cross-sectoral collaboration to realize the potential of EO for water monitoring at all levels of society.