Table 6 Examples of application of empirical and semi-empirical models towards SDGs using EO data

SDG 2 (Zero Hunger)

Soil condition

Proposed a Semi-Empirical model, which demonstrated its suitability, to reconstruct the signal from Signal-to-Noise Ratio data and simultaneous acquire information that is influenced by soil moisture

[139]

SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy)

Renewable energy sources

Developed a semi-empirical model to forecast the monthly average of solar radiation per hour. The results demonstrated that the estimated value was in agreement with the measurements

[140]

SDG 15 (Life on Land)

Forest

Proposed the use of a Semi-Empirical model with images from RADARSAT-2 to acquire features from the surface of tropical forests. The framework achieved an accuracy of ≅ 83%

[141]

Invasive plants

Compared supervised and unsupervised image classifiers for mapping a cactus plant, and the results showed that the supervised classifiers were more accurate than the unsupervised classifiers

[142]