Choropleth Map

A choropleth map is a type of thematic map where areas (such as countries, provinces and regions) are shaded to represent an average value of a particular quantity in those areas. The colour intensity/hue represents the range of values in the data over a geographic area e.g. dark to light colours. I chose to focus on Sustainable development goal 15: life on land and used data from the SDG website to make the following map. Sustainable development has been defined by Brundtland in his 1987 report ‘Our Common Future’ as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations members in 2015, created 17 world Sustainable Development Goals with the aim of creating ‘peace and prosperity for people and the planet’. According to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals website, the aim of goal 15 is to ‘protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss’. Accordingly, the two maps I made are on sustainable indicator 15.1.1 forest area as a proportion of total land area and 15.2.1 area of forest protected (under an independently verified forest management certification scheme) in hectares. The slider function allows one to compare these two maps .

SDG 15.1.1The first choropleth map uses hues of green to show forest area as a proportion (%) of total land area across the world. Darker green represents higher forest coverage and lighter green represents lower forest coverage. This map shows data from the year 2020 (as does the next map as well) but if you click on the individual country (in the browser) then more information from the last 20 years is also available

SDG 15.2.1The second choropleth map uses the colour yellow to represent forest area under protection (specifically – under an independently verified forest management certification scheme in thousands of hectares).