In 2018, SDIM initiated the "Belt and Road" research collaborations with Mongolia, Pakistan and Russia centered on space technology for disaster risk reduction. The collaboration facilitates development of research capacity between the cooperating parties. Under the collaboration joint field experiments were conducted to collect localized data in support of space based observations for disaster mitigation.

For example, SDIM is closely collaborating with Mongolia to develop a region-specific, multi-index drought monitoring model. SDIM successfully completed the adaptability analysis of the drought index, which is part of the model being developed, addressing problems such as poor temporal-spatial adaptation of the drought monitoring techniques and to address the vague description of the occurrences and development of drought by a single index. SDIM has already successfully completed development of DroughtWatch-Mongolia system that provides continental-scale drought analysis in Mongolia, and officially handed it over to the Mongolia National Remote Sensing Center in September 2018.