This international workshop held in Beijing on 9-10 June 2015 was convened jointly with a number of ICSU-related Chinese networks and organisations, and others, such as the National Disaster Reduction Center of China, the National Geomatics Center of China and the UN-SPIDER Beijing office. The meeting had strong participation from IRDR’s host institute RADI, who presented some of the latest developments in global spatial data production and sharing and promoted the exchange of successful applications of global geo-information. Participants examined up-to-date user requirements, critical gaps in knowledge and applications, and identified major challenges. The workshop aimed at promoting multi-disciplinary collaboration to provide reliable global geo-information to support sustainability science in international programmes such as Future Earth and IRDR.

The advancement of remote sensing and spatial information technologies will make more and more spatial data sets available at both global and local scales for better environmental change analysis, transformational development, and dynamic modeling. A special early 2016 issue is planned for the International Journal of Digital Earth – a journal also hosted by IRDR-host RADI.