Employing GIS towards shaping a smart and sustainable future: a brief policy survey of global and Taiwan’s efforts

Abstract. Since UN announced 17 SDGs in 2015, many countries around the world have been endeavouring to promote SDGs towards building a sustainable future. Given the disparity of the regional development, national government is suggested to establish localised sustainable vision. Drawing on UN SDGs with targets and corresponding indicators, meanwhile considering local circumstances and sustainable vision, government further seeks to establish localised SDGs with related targets and indicators. Meanwhile, under the digital era, digital technologies have been extensively employed as the smart tool in many fields nowadays, and Geographic Information System (GIS) has been developed as the platform to visualise the SDGs progress in UN and many countries. On the above basis, this paper further demonstrates Taiwan’s efforts to establish localised SDGs, and develop National Geographic Information System (NGIS) to implement the sustainable development in Taiwan, monitor the SDGs progress, and provide feedback to policymakers to further make strategic policies in a top-down approach, meanwhile develop Community Geographic Information System (CGIS) to encourage stakeholders and citizens to harness the concept of CGIS to proactively create and tell their own stories and promote Regional Revitalisation policy in a bottom-up approach. Moreover, GIS could not function well without appropriate data management including massive data and open data policy, well-built digital infrastructure, as well as the selected “right data” and cyber security. Hence, with appropriate data management, GIS as a smart tool could facilitate the promotion and implementation of SDGs in an intuitive manner towards shaping a smart and sustainable future.