The New Silk Road, much like the historical route, is a network of trade routes through Asia connecting the East and West from ancient China to the Mediterranean Sea. Together with the Maritime Silk Road (officially the 21st Century Maritime Silk Route Economic Belt), the two were consolidated as the “Belt and Road”(B&R). This initiative is a forward-looking vision on international cooperation and shared development that spans three continents and their contiguous oceans and seas. The combined pressure of climate variability, intensified use of land and marine resources, and the fragility of many ecosystems in the B&R countries make it very challenging to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Moreover, many environmental threats in the B&R countries are inherently transnational, such as the management and use of water resources, the mitigation of air pollution, and the improvement of the quality of both inland and coastal waters.

Assessing and monitoring both terrestrial and marine ecosystems require observations which must be precise, accurate, and timely, while measuring both objects and processes across a range of spatial and temporal scales. By acquiring space-air-ground integrated data resources, it will establish a common “Big Earth Data” platform for multiple fields concerned with sustainable development. The initiative proposes the critical needs for initiating and operating an international scientific program. To promote cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road route to demonstrate and foster the smart uses and applications of “Big Earth Data” in support of the sustainable development of people and economies at local, national, and regional levels, in 2016, the “Digital Belt and Road (DBAR)” initiative was initiated by the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), with the support of over 20 countries along the Belt and Road.