Abstract
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been in effect since 2015 to continue the progress of the Millennium Development Goals. Some of the SDGs are expected to be achieved by 2020, while others by 2030. Among the 17 SDGs, SDG 15 is particularly dedicated to environmental resources (e.g., forest, wetland, land). These resources are gravely threatened by human-induced climate change and intense anthropogenic activities. In Bangladesh, one of the most climate-vulnerable countries, climate change and human interventions are taking a heavy toll on environmental resources. Ensuring the sustainability of these resources requires regular monitoring and evaluation to identify challenges, concerns, and progress of environmental management. Remote sensing has been used as an effective tool to monitor and evaluate these resources. As such, many studies on Bangladesh used various remote-sensing approaches to conduct research on the issues related to SDG 15, particularly on forest, wetland, erosion, and landslides. However, we lack a comprehensive view of the progress, challenges, concerns, and future outlook of the goal and its targets. In this study, we sought to systematically review the remote-sensing studies related to SDG 15 (targets 15.1–15.3) to present developments, analyze trends and limitations, and provide future directions to ensure sustainability. We developed several search keywords and finally selected 53 articles for review. We discussed the topical and methodological trends of current remote-sensing works. In addition, limitations were identified and future research directions were provided.
Highlights
Aggravating climate change impacts and increasing global population warrant the sustainable management of finite resources
We found that remote-sensing research on Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) 15 components was conducted throughout our study period (2000–2019)
We assume that the coarse resolution of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data discouraged its use in wetland analysis when Landsat was not freely available
Summary
Aggravating climate change impacts and increasing global population warrant the sustainable management of finite resources This concern for sustainable development formed the basis of the ‘United Nations’ ‘Agenda 21’, a plan of action agreed in the 1992 Rio Summit to ensure global and local sustainable development practices. The Sustainable Development Solutions Network Survey 2019 found that Bangladesh is among the only two countries in the world that conducted an estimate of incremental financial needs to implement the SDGs [6]. Despite these attempts, attaining the SDGs may remain a challenge because of governance mechanisms, resource constraints, policy conflicts, and trade-offs among economic, social, and environmental components [7–9]. One of the few effective approaches to track the SDGs’ accomplishment is to analyze specific targets and indicators as this approach can elucidate how much progress has been made and what further needs to be done [10,11]
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