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Cities located in the Arctic often have extreme geographic and environmental contexts and unique sociopolitical and economic trajectories that, when combined with amplified effects of climate change in the region, impact future sustainable development. Well-recognized and standardized sustainable development indicator (SDI) frameworks such as ISO 37120 or UN-Habitat City Prosperity Index are often used to compare data across cities globally using comprehensive sets of indicators. While such indexes help characterize progress toward development and guide short- and long-term decision-making, they often lack relevance to specific contexts or characterize future visions of urban growth. To evaluate the extent of these deficiencies and to provide a comparative analysis of approaches to sustainable urban growth in the Arctic, this paper analyzes city planning documents for five northern cities - Anchorage (USA), Utqiagvik (USA), Reyjavik (ISL), Iqaluit, (CAN), Whitehorse, (CAN) - for goals, targets, and indicators and compare these to thematic areas and indicators defined by ISO 37120:2018 Sustainable Cities and Communities. The results confirm that although international SDI frameworks may be useful for comparative analysis of cities across diverse regions, they exclude important local factors that influence goal-oriented urban sustainability planning strategies employed in the Arctic region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the best practices to institutionalize the internal quality of student assessment (SA) when a gap emerges between quality conceptualization and practice work, using Imam Abdul Rahman bin Faisal University (IAU) as a case study. Design/methodology/approach: A single-embedded case study research design chronologically presents key events of assuring and improving SA at IAU. It integrates quantitative and qualitative data to provide empirical evidence of changes in SA practices. Findings: Over three years, evident improvements in SA practices resulted in more effective internal quality assurance strategies (e.g., faculty involvement) and the achievement of performance indicators. Research limitations/implications: This study used data from informal observation and self-reports. Thus, it is suggested that future research should use in-depth (e.g. focus group) and diverse data sources from stakeholders (e.g. students) and use emerging global trends to assess SA quality. Practical implications: Involving faculty as changing agents via accountability and training in assuring and improving SA quality leads to measurable improvements. Social implications: A top-down approach alone is insufficient to assure and improve the quality of SA practices, so empowering faculty via involvement and training is inevitable. Originality/value: The quality assurance of SA described in this practice-oriented case places IAU as a leading university in the region, contributes to the external quality assurance of SA, empowers Saudi graduates to compete in the labor market as aspired in Vision 2030 and adds to the literature on quality assurance of SA in a higher education context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the continuous degradation of the global environment, ecological restoration has become a primary task in global environmental governance. In this process, remote sensing technology, as an advanced monitoring and analysis tool, plays a key role in monitoring ecological restoration. This article reviews the application of remote sensing technology in ecological restoration monitoring. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the literature in the field of ecological remote sensing, it systematically summarizes the major in-orbit spaceborne and airborne sensors and their related products. This article further proposes a series of evaluation indicators for ecological restoration from four aspects: forests, soil, water, and the atmosphere, and elaborates on the calculation methods for these indicators. In addition, this paper also summarizes the methods for evaluating the effectiveness of ecological restoration, including subjective evaluation, objective evaluation, and comprehensive evaluation methods. Finally, we analyze the challenges faced by remote sensing technology in evaluating ecological restoration effectiveness, such as issues with the precision of indicators extraction, the limitations of spatial resolution, and the diversity of evaluation methods. This review also looks forward to future ecological restoration technologies, such as the potential applications of integrated aerospace and terrestrial remote sensing, multi-data fusion, and machine learning technologies. This study reveals the effectiveness of remote sensing technology in ecological restoration monitoring, aiming to provide efficient tools and innovative strategies for future remote sensing monitoring and assessment of ecological restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the development of indicators measuring attacks on education through a case study of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA). As GCPEA and its partners have brought the problem of attacks on education to the attention of global civil society, they have engaged in contestation to define attacks on education and construct indicators to track the relevant violations. These debates are significant in that indicators are a tool of global governance that shape policymaking and resource allocation. The discussion draws on the author's decade of experience working among groups focused on the protection of education, including direct involvement developing indicators on attacks on education, and on three sets of qualitative interviews. It analyses how resource limitations, organisational agendas, challenges of measurement and verification, and global power dynamics exert pressure towards a more narrow understanding of attacks on education. This limits the transformative potential of the protecting education agenda. The discussion illustrates that EiE actors must consider the ways that they measure their work in ongoing conversations about creating a decolonial and more equitable field of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart Specialization policy, Europe's place-based innovation policy, is transitioning into an innovation policy for sustainability inspired by academic debate and the urgency of societal challenges. The implications in terms of policy design remain underexplored. This paper studies the policy implications of this transition on the design of monitoring indicators. First, a theoretical framework based on the literature is created. Then, monitoring indicators used in the first policy phase are summarized into categories and themes through inductive and deductive document analysis. The indicators' strengths and limitations are discussed. By highlighting how monitoring indicators need to adjust to the policy transition, this paper contributes to the literature on innovation policy and Smart Specialization. It also provides guidance to policymakers by developing a framework on indicator design and providing practical recommendations on aspects that need to be considered, captured, and analysed through the indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: How to evaluate the social impact of social innovation has emerged as an important question posed by academics, organizations, and policymakers in recent years. One reason for this is the increasing concern with the social impact of different types of organizations and social practices, particularly in response to a recognition of the urgency of developing more inclusive economies and societies. To find an answer to this question, this research seeks to investigate the state-of-the-art in terms of social innovation impact measurement, drawing on both scientific literature and practitioner literature. Originality/value: This research discusses the challenges posed by measuring the impact of social innovation initiatives and how these measurements may change the assessment process. The analysis finds that methodologies for measuring social innovation have mainly been undertaken in Europe, where these initiatives are largely addressed. Design/methodology/approach: This paper adopted a qualitative research approach based on the scoping review method. This method is widely used to identify emergent topics in scientific literature, aiming to identify implications for research and decision-making. The research was developed based on different steps to obtain information about the social impact measurement indicators and their overall contribution to the advancement of social innovation. Findings: The results also confirmed the lack of social innovation frameworks, methodologies, and tools capable of measuring the social impact of social innovations. Furthermore, a set of barriers in this field was identified, which can be used to channel better upcoming academic research on developing social impact indicators for social innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban areas generate more than 70% of the world's climate change emissions, mainly CO2, produced by the combustion of fossil fuels. Climate change is increasing cities' exposure to climate hazards, such as heat waves or floods. Therefore, there is a need to improve risk management with the inclusion of climate resilience in urban policy design. Despite improved urban climate monitoring, there are still relatively few scientific publications on climate change adaptation in urban areas. Adaptation to climate change is not achieved through specific action, but rather through the adoption and continuous implementation of adaptation actions such as housing rehabilitation, green space management and protection measures for vulnerable groups. This variety of actions makes it difficult not only to identify different indicators, but also to use common benchmarks. Considering the role of municipalities in adapting to climate change, it is crucial to identify adaptation indicators that serve as a basis for decision making, as well as evaluation methods that allow the effectiveness of planned and implemented measures in municipalities. It can be used to determine which measures increase the level of adaptation or lead to poor adaptation. Therefore, monitoring indicators makes it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of the measures, in addition to formulating new ones. This paper includes a literature review of existing index designed to address climate hazards and mitigate their impacts in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptation tracking is crucial for understanding progress in responding to climate change impacts across space and time. However, adaptation tracking is constrained by the lack of agreement on how to measure adaptation. While there has been significant focus on government plans and other documented adaptation as the basis for adaptation tracking, emerging literature also advocates for inclusive approaches that consider multiple experiences and priorities when designing and using adaptation tracking indicators. However, little literature empirically investigates the specifics of what this integrated approach is or what it could achieve. We address this gap using a thematic analysis of 48 focus group discussions and of government policies to compare the perspectives of livestock keepers and governments in Eastern Africa on climate risks and adaptation in livestock systems. The results show considerable similarities in how they perceive climatic hazards, impacts, adaptation strategies, goals, and adaptive capacities, highlighting elements that could be recognized as relevant by both sets of stakeholders. However, the differences underscore the value of an integrated approach as it supports the recognition of variations in climate risks and adaptation options across contexts as well as capturing diverse effects of adaptation across scales. Insights from this paper contribute to discussions on developing integrated adaptation tracking frameworks that take into account the contextual nature of climate hazards, impacts, adaptation strategies, adaptive capacities, and adaptation goals. Governments and livestock keepers perceive climate hazards, impacts, adaptation strategies, adaptive capacity, and adaptation goals in largely similar ways. Differences in governmental and livestock keeper perspectives provide the basis for integrating them in the development of adaptation tracking indicators. Drawing on multiple experiences, priorities, and knowledges could support more effective tracking of adaptation progress by considering the various scales and contexts within which adaptation occurs. Integration requires an adaptation tracking framework that utilizes core indicators that have broader relevance and additional ones that address the context-specificity of climate hazards, impacts, adaptive capacities, adaptation strategies, and adaptation goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the greatest challenges of our time is monitoring the rapid environmental changes taking place worldwide at both local and global scales. This requires easy-to-use and ready-to-implement tools and services to monitor and quantify aspects of bio- and geodiversity change and the impact of land use intensification using freely available and global remotely sensed data, and to derive remotely sensed indicators. Currently, there are no services for quantifying both raster- and vector-based indicators in a "compact tool". Therefore, the main innovation of ESIS/Imalys is having a remote sensing (RS) tool that allows for RS data processing, data management, and continuous and discrete quantification and derivation of RS indicators in one tool. With the ESIS/Imalys project (Ecosystem Integrity Remote Sensing—Modelling and Service Tool), we try to present environmental indicators on a clearly defined and reproducible basis. The Imalys software library generates the RS indicators and remote sensing products defined for ESIS. This paper provides an overview of the functionality of the Imalys software library. An overview of the technical background of the implementation of the Imalys library, data formats and the user interfaces is given. Examples of RS-based indicators derived using the Imalys tool at pixel level and at zone level (vector level) are presented. Furthermore, the advantages and disadvantages of the Imalys tool are discussed in detail in order to better assess the value of Imalys for users and developers. The applicability of the indicators will be demonstrated through three ecological applications, namely: (1) monitoring landscape diversity, (2) monitoring landscape structure and landscape fragmentation, and (3) monitoring land use intensity and its impact on ecosystem functions. Despite the integration of large amounts of data, Imalys can run on any PC, as the processing and derivation of indicators has been greatly optimised. The Imalys source code is freely available and is hosted and maintained under an open source license. Complete documentation of all methods, functions and derived indicators can be found in the freely available Imalys manual. The user-friendliness of Imalys, despite the integration of a large amount of RS data, makes it another important tool for ecological research, modelling and application for the monitoring and derivation of ecosystem indicators from local to global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global energy demand, water demand, and raw materials extraction are major challenges for society as population grows. While a traditional linear economy approach leads to depletion of finite resources, damage to the Earth's ecosystems, and adverse impacts on human health, a paradigm shift toward implementation of circular economy principles is paramount to the reversal of world resources' exhaustion. The wastewater, or "used water," sector can contribute to offsetting resource scarcity challenges by adopting circular economy principles to recover and reintroduce recovered resources into the economy. Transitioning to a circular economy model requires monitoring and tracking progress via metrics in the form of indicators. In this paper, a bibliometric analysis followed by a systematic literature review was conducted on available circular economy indicators in the used water treatment sector. Over 200 indicators were categorized into three impact categories: environmental, social, and economic to identify gaps in the existing literature. Results showed that less than 50% of the available circularity indicators are applied in the used water sector and environmental indicators represent the highest percentage among the potential applicable indicators. Research gaps in the circular economy literature in relation to used water treatment systems were identified and future research directions discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the age of the digital revolution, many cities around the world have made significant investments in planning and implementing smart city initiatives to address the issues of climate change and urbanisation. Concurrently, numerous attempts have been made to evaluate the performance and outcomes of these initiatives. In this study, a static and dynamic ranking of 33 selected cities for the period 2005–2019 is provided using dynamic factor analysis. In this comparative study, cities are evaluated and ranked on various smart drivers including technology, community, infrastructure, community, and governance to identify the best (and worst) smart city and to highlight the changes in smartness over the last 15 years. The results show that urban smartness has changed significantly over the past 15 years, but the smartness of most individual cities in the study has either steadily improved or remained constant. Further, smart practices vary significantly across cities, with Frankfurt, Washington, Munich, Los Angeles, and New York City showing relatively strong urban smartness, compared to the poor performance of Bratislava, Warsaw, and Prague. The findings of this study can serve as an empirical basis for identifying specific strengths and weaknesses of cities and as a knowledge-based decision-making tool for policymakers and metropolitan leaders in selecting policies that can improve the growth and performance of smart cities. The paper recommends several proposals to steer the efforts of policymakers and the private and public sectors towards more effective and efficient strategic planning and implementation of smart city initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the dairy sector, the economic efficiency issues have a complex causality and are essential for the future and continuity of these activities. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the average level of technical-economic indicators in dairy cow, sheep and goat farms, at the country level, based on the estimates regarding different categories of expenses and the average prices on the free market, at the level of the year 2023 and using formulas in economic specialty literature. Thus, depending on the efficiency level of the farm, possible scenarios for varying technical-economic indicators were simulated, obtaining different results regarding the profitability of the farms, with positive or negative values. Thus, for an average level of 6000 l of milk/cow and a price of 2 RON/l, the rate of net income with subsidies was -4.26%. In sheep milk, for a production of 60 liters/head and 5 RON/liter, the above indicator was -2.77%, and in goat milk, at 270 liters/head and 4,5 RON/liter, the rate of net income with subsidies was 13.05%. Indicators that may vary refer to the level of milk production, the price of milk at the producer, the value of secondary production (calf/lamb/kid/manure capitalized on the market), or the allocation of different levels of fixed or variable expenses. The application by farmers of some scenarios of increase or decrease in the level of different technical-economic indicators constitutes an important managerial tool for the planning process of production activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The livestock sectors, including goats breeding, face currently economic difficulties and a low level of specialization and integration of productions, in a challenging world. The objective of the paper is to evaluate the degree of economic vulnerability of different goat farms, based on the calculation of technical-economic indicators. The material studied is a sample of 33 goat farms of different sizes, from different regions of Romania, between 15.0 and 476.7 heads/farm (average size for the years 2017-2019), falling into the following categories: 3% subsistence farms, 27.3% semisubsistence farms, 12.1% small farms, 57.6% medium farms. The goat breeds from the farms under study are Carpatina, Alba de Banat, as well as highly productive breeds, such as French Alpine and Saanen and their crossbreeds with Romanian breeds. The research results indicated that the mountain area would be the most vulnerable from an economic point of view in raising dairy goats. Also, the farms that are part of the smallest size segments, under 100 heads, have the highest degree of economic vulnerability and fail to adapt quickly to changes in the economic environment. In this context, the analysis of technical-economic indicators highlights the characteristics of the processes and becomes an important tool in their assessment, in adopting decisions and transforming the economic reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy sustainability indicators are essential for evaluating and measuring energy systems' environmental, social, and economic impact. These indicators can be used to assess the sustainability of different energy sources, such as renewable or fossil fuels, as well as the performance of energy systems in various regions or countries. The goal of this paper is to propose a new energy sustainability index based on fuzzy logic for the Amazon region. The fuzzy inference system enabled the operationalization of subjective sustainability concepts, resulting in a final index that can evaluate the performance of the states in the Legal Amazon and compare them to each other. The results indicated that Mato Grosso had the highest ranking, followed by Tocantins, Amapá, Roraima, Rondônia, Pará, Acre, Maranhão, and Amazonas in the last position. These findings demonstrate that the selected indicators and the final index are effective tools for evaluating the energy sustainability of the Amazon region and can aid public managers in making decisions and proposing sustainable regional development policies for the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability rating systems for the built environment involve a multitude of indicators that are based on different types of data. This work capitalizes on an existing multicriteria assessment method and supporting decision-making tool at building and neighbourhood scale, to develop an enhanced method and tool at city scale. The main sustainability issues at building and city scales include site and infrastructure, energy and resources consumption, environmental loadings, climate change, environmental quality, water, waste, transportation, services, social aspects, economy and governance. Approximately 300 indicators distributed among the different scales are used to describe and quantify the various facets of sustainability. Specifically, the building scale includes a pool of 80 indicators of which 17 are key performance indicators (KPIs), the neighbourhood scale has 133 indicators of which 14 are KPIs and the city scale has a total of 99 indicators of which 10 are KPIs that were new additions to the existing method. The emphasis in this paper is given on elaborating the key performance indicators for cities and demonstrating their applicability through a case study. The common method and tools provide a flexible assessment system for local authorities and stakeholders to develop and assess sustainability plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern agriculture poses new challenges related to the increase of the need of sustainable development of the agrarian sector, and rural territories, respectively. The use of large amounts of chemical preparations in agriculture inevitably hides a number of possibilities for dangers, both for all mankind and for the natural environment. The main goal of this article is to analyze and evaluate the current state of use of pesticides and fertilizers in Bulgaria, as part of the agro-ecological indicators affecting the climate and natural ecosystems. As a result from the research carried out we found that the levels of pesticide use in Bulgaria are below the average, but the last years are marked by a tendency for gradual increase of the areas of the used quantities of nitrogen fertilizers, manure and organic fertilizer, and a deficit in the Phosphorous balance in soil was noted. We need lowering of the degree of ecological risks related to use of pesticides and fertilizers in Bulgaria. This way the results will be multiplied for achieving higher level of economic, social and ecological sustainability in the development of individual rural territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this research was to study of the correlation between RGB colour indicators and lead concentration in leafy plants. Cabbage and lettuce crops were watered with 3 levels of Lead Pb-contaminated (2.4 and 6 mg/lit). To distinguish the heavy metal contamination and their impact on vegetative characteristics for plants, the results showed with the levels of poisoning (0,2,4, and 6 mg/lit) showed the maximum value of Hue and vegetative were 0.76. and 0.032, also showed the minimum value for the same indices were 2.15 and 1.51. Also with the levels of poisoning (0,2,4, and 6mg/lit) showed the maximum value of simple red-green ratio and Green-red vegetation index was 1.61. and 0.23, also showed the minimum value for the same indices were 1.28 and 0.12. for Cabbage crops while for lettuce the results showed with the levels of poisoning (0, 2, 4, and 6 mg/lit) showed the maximum value of Hue and vegetative were 0.71. and 0.027, also showed the minimum value for the same indices were 0.41 and 0.024. Also with the levels of poisoning (0,2,4, and 6 mg/lit) showed the maximum value of simple red-green ratio and Green-red vegetation index was 1.65. and 0.43, also showed the minimum value for the same indices were 1.6 and 0.2. Linear regression analysis was performed on the equations to predict the monitoring Hue and vegetative and simple red-green ratio and Green-red vegetation index The red, green, blue band and intensity, the simple blue-green ratio addition to visible atmospherically resistant index simple green leaf and normalized greenblue difference index The RGB-based vegetation index 2 and RGB-based vegetation index 3 at different poisoning levels. The existence of a strong relationship between them and contains a high coefficient of determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of common good(s) is crucial in understanding higher education and its contributions. However, measuring global common goods in higher education has been largely overlooked. This paper proposes a framework to measure global common goods in higher education that contains five core dimensions (i.e., knowledge creation, people mobility, research collaboration, human well-being, and cultural contribution). The framework is based on mostly objectively quantifiable indicators that have broad applicability worldwide. This attempt would facilitate the understanding of higher education’s quantitative contributions to global common goods and potentially help efforts to increase them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comprehensive study on the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods, specifically machine learning and deep learning, for the diagnosis of bearing faults. The study explores both data preprocessing-dependent methods (Support Vector Machine, Nearest Neighbor, and Decision Tree) and a preprocessing-independent method (1D Convolutional Neural Network). The experiment setup utilizes the Case Western Reserve University dataset for signal acquisition. A detailed strategy for data processing is developed, encompassing initialization, data loading, signal filtration, decomposition, feature extraction in both time- and frequency-domains, and feature selection. Indeed, the study involves working with four datasets, selected based on the distribution curves of the indicators as a function of the number of observations. The results demonstrate remarkable performance of the AI methods in bearing fault diagnosis. The 1D-CNN model, in particular, shows high robustness and accuracy, even in the presence of load variations. The findings of this study shed light on the significant potential of AI methods in improving the accuracy and efficiency of bearing fault diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a set of digitalisation indicators focused on measuring the different digital capabilities and infrastructure of electricity distribution systems, as opposed to previous indicators which have mainly focused on performance and quality of service aspects. The indicators are classified according to the pillars of digitalisation: sensor and actuator, connectivity, data processing, and digital culture. They are use-case-agnostic and do not require a huge amount of information. In addition to this, three possible new applications of these indicators for distribution system operators and regulatory authorities are identified and discussed. The extensive use of these indicators in Europe could allow the development of fruitful collaborations between distribution system operators, allow the identification of cause–effect relations between grid performance and digital infrastructure, and improve the replicability of innovative smart grid solutions. However, this will only be possible if regulators promote the adoption of the proposed indicators and the dissemination of their results. • Smart grid indicators are required by European Directive 2019/944. • Indicators on sensors/actuators, connectivity, data processing, and digital culture. • Indicators to provide an overview of the distribution grid. • Indicators to study relation between performance and digital infrastructure. • Indicators to generate information for the replicability of solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This article is in reaction to the new Directive (EU) on the resilience of critical entities. • It was created using the Critical Entities Resilience Failure Indication tool (CERFI Tool). • The CERFI Tool connects threat knowledge and the resilience of critical entities. • The CERFI Tool contributes to improving the safety of energy and transport infrastructures. • The use case focuses on the assessment of a physical attack on an electricity substation. The adoption of the new Directive (EU) 2022/2557 on the resilience of critical entities has raised the question of how to assess the level of resilience of these entities in relation to current security threats. Until now, approaches have focused only on assessing the resilience of critical infrastructure elements. However, the new Directive exemplifies the need to pay attention not only to the element resilience, but also and more importantly to the resilience of their owners and operators, i.e., critical entities. Based on this fact, the authors of the article created a tool for Critical Entities Resilience Failure Indication (CERFI Tool). The essence of this tool is a probabilistic algorithm that predicts the relationship between the threat intensity and the protective part of critical entity resilience through indicators (to be created by the assessors themselves). The result of this prediction is an indication of the critical point of failure of the critical entity's resilience in phases of prevention and absorption of impacts. The CERFI Tool thus contributes to increasing the safety of technically oriented infrastructures, especially those of an energy and transport nature. The paper concludes with an example of the practical application of the developed tool on a selected critical entity in the energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• There is high consistency in the extent of land degradation. • There are consistent hydrothermal change characteristics in the land degradation hotspots area. Land degradation is a major impediment to achieving sustainable development. However, there is currently no harmonized global map of land degradation status and hotspots. This paper aims to obtain the status and hotspots map of global land degradation by multiple methods and indicators to give essential references for land degradation neutrality. The results show that there are significant differences in the distribution and degree of land degradation between the different methods and indicators. Validation through observation points reveals that most of the methods and indicators can reflect land degradation in arid and semi-arid areas, while there are suitable methods or indicators in tropical and high-latitude areas. The degree of degradation has a large difference after overlay analysis, which shows that there are shortcomings of different methods and indicators for monitoring the degree of land degradation. However, the overlay of land degradation extent displays a high consistency, reflecting the current state of global land degradation to a certain extent. These areas with high overlay value can be recognized as hotspots of land degradation. It is also found there are consistent water-energy change characteristics in the hotspot area, such as increased land surface temperature and air temperature and decreased soil moisture and precipitation. These results conclude that studies on the degree of land degradation need to be considered in an integrated manner about the regional background. The combination of multiple methods and indicators is recommended for land degradation extent studies in large areas. Comparison of different methods and indicators is important guidance for global land degradation research. Accelerating ecological monitoring and restoration of land degradation hotspots is the first step towards land degradation neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their limitations as proxy measures, indicators can serve as leverage points in encouraging policy change. Facing the global urgency of climate change and increasingly recognizing the role of education in providing the social and political impetus for climate action, indicators on climate change education can help. However, despite the encompassing of climate change education in several Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets, the associated global indicators currently rely on country self-reported and otherwise inadequate data. This paper describes a collaborative process of developing publicly available third-party data sources to support more robust indicators of climate change education, including in relation to the SDGs. • Climate change education is closely intertwined with the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular target 4.7. • High quality indicators can be useful to support necessary policy change. • The few existing indicators that on climate change education are based on self-reported and otherwise inadequate data. • Collaboratively developed indicators based on third-party data offer a path to the development of more robust indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]