Monitoring 40 years of global urban development in all cities of the planet with the open and free GHSL database

The Joint Research Centre Global Human Settlement Layer –GHSL, is a framework of data and tools to support the monitoring of the 2030 Development Agenda. The GHSL is produced at the European Commission - Joint Research Centre, and supports the Group on Earth Observation Human Planet Initiative.

The GHSL is the flagship open and free, multitemporal, global coverage suite of data mapping human presence on earth and the process of urban development since 1975 to 2015. The GHSL is produced elaborating historical satellite images and data from open sources. The first release of the GHSL datasets consisted in fine-scale gridded layers of built-up area and number of inhabitants in four dates: 1975, 1990, 2000 and 2015, and it was released at Habitat III.

The side event demonstrates how to measure the transformative trends of urbanisation with GHSL data capturing the differences at global, regional, national, subnational and local levels. In the event the new City Centres Data Base will be presented. It is the first systematic global characterisation of cities over time, beyond population and built-up area assessment. This dataset is a successful result of the scientific cooperation among the partners of the GEO Human Planet Initiative.

Participants will be introduced to the concept of the global GHSL city data base that allows analysing 40 years of urban development at city level, offering actionable solutions for the implementation of the NUA.

This event is part of the GEO Human Planet Initiative contributing to the UN Technology Facilitation Mechanism and enabling the test and the collective discussion of alternative options in operationalization of the indicators. The Human Planet initiative operates in an open and free data access policy, with the mission of maximize the access to data and statistics to ensure that no one is left behind in the information gaps.