Planet Earth is rapidly ageing, and humankind is yet to thrive despite the odds of its complex role shaping the environmental and societal challenges. Science-informed strategic development for constantly reforming and unifying societies’ resilience skills and resources to evolve in such a world is key to harmony and stability at all levels. To this end, there have been several initiatives at the global level led by the United Nations.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. SDGs build on the successes of the Millennium Development Goals, and among other priorities include several new areas such as climate change, economic inequality, innovation, sustainable consumption, peace and justice. The goals are interconnected – often the key to success on one will involve tackling issues more commonly associated with another.

A key part of the success of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is measured by progress in implementation of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) strategies. This is evidenced in fact by the presence of the 25 targets related to disaster risk reduction in 10 of the 17 SDGs considering the disaster resilience as critical to poverty reduction and key enabler of sustainable development. There is recognition in the proposals for both the SDGs and the Sendai Framework that their desired outcomes are a product of complex and interconnected social and economic processes with overlap across the two agendas. The integration of the two agendas can be very beneficial for building resilience comprehensively across societies. While maintaining the autonomy of each of the post-2015 frameworks, improved coherence of action to implement the different agendas can save money and time, enhance efficiency and further enable adaptation action.

The aim of this symposium is to highlight the role of Geosciences in supporting the 2030 Agenda and beyond. We invite regional and/or national contributions that share insights, tools and demonstrations that build collective intelligence to steer societies towards the shared metrics of the 2030 Agenda and the Sendai Framework. We also welcome lesson learned interdisciplinary studies operating across multiple sectors and scales, ranging from local to global, facilitating (or limiting) policy coherence and contributing to integrated approaches to adaptation, sustainable development and DRR.