Land degradation – the reduction or loss of the productive potential of land – is a global challenge. Over 20% of the Earth’s vegetated surface is estimated to be degraded, affecting over 1.3 billion people, with an economic impact of up to US$10.6 trillion.
CONTEXT
Land degradation reduces agricultural productivity and increases the vulnerability of those areas already at risk of impacts from climate variability and change. Addressing land degradation, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 15.3 and a key component of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, is essential to improve the livelihoods of those most affected, and to build resilience to safeguard against the most extreme effects of climate change.
“Smallholder farmers, women and indigenous communities are the most vulnerable, given their reliance on land-based resources, compounded by their exclusion from wider infrastructure and economic development.”
OUR PROJECT
The Global Environment Facility (GEF)-funded project entitled “Strengthening Land Degradation Neutrality data and decision-making through free and open access platforms”, known as Tools 4 LDN, will combine tools, databases and expertise from leading organizations and universities researching best practices and approaches to eliminating land degradation.
OUTCOME
The Tools 4 LDN Project will have four major outcomes:
Increase resolution of datasets for monitoring land condition through Trends.Earth
Improve the understanding of the interactions between land degradation, drought, and socio-economic factors as they contribute to the development of vulnerable communities.
Develop approaches to support monitoring of LDN target progress integrating field data collection and remote sensing data at multiple scales.
Build capacity on planning, monitoring, and reporting of LDN in support of the UNCCD reporting cycle.
TimelinE
The project activities will occur from September 2019-September 2021.
PARTNERS
Conservation International (Trends.Earth), University of Colorado (LandPKS), Bern University - World Overview on Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) and University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB - Planetary Health Institute).
The project will integrate the WOCAT SLM database, LandPKS mobile application and Trends.Earth plugin to QGIS with additional socio-economic and drought indicators from UCSB, University of North Carolina - Wilmington and Brown University.
OBJECTIVE
To provide improved methods for assessing land degradation and understanding the socio-economic conditions of vulnerable communities in affected areas through the integration of free and open platforms to support country level reporting to the UNCCD
project Components
Project Component 1: Improvement of land degradation biophysical indicators to support monitoring towards land degradation neutrality: Trends.Earth currently provides global datasets at resolutions of 250-300m. Even when Trends.Earth supports the usage of higher spatial resolution datasets provided by the user, the majority of UNCCD parties used default data to report on the land-based progress indicators, underscoring the utility, suitability and need for data prepared in a globally consistent manner, lowering the barriers to reporting for many countries.
Under this component, new datasets and algorithms will be added to Trends.Earth to provide enhanced spatial resolution indicators for the three land-based indicators: changes in primary productivity, land cover, and soil organic carbon (10-30m). Higher spatial resolution data will be critical for tracking changes in land condition as a result of on-the-ground activities and to facilitate monitoring of different land management activities implemented to support LDN.
Project Component 2: Understanding the socio-environmental interactions between drought, land degradation, and poverty to support development of monitoring frameworks for UNCCD strategic objectives 2 and 3: Under this component we will evaluate, in close collaboration with the UNCCD, World Meteorological Organization, and other key stakeholders, datasets and approaches for evaluating the socio environmental interactions between drought, land degradation and poverty. Global datasets (biophysical and socioeconomic) and approaches will be integrated into Trends.Earth to allow users to run national level assessments to understand the risks drought and poverty could pose to the most vulnerable communities in order to enhance their resilience and wellbeing. Global datasets to support reporting of SO 2 and 3 will be evaluated and made available to users through Trends.Earth.
Project Component 3: Support planning and monitoring of land degradation neutrality (LDN) priorities from field to national scales: Up to now, Trends.Earth has provided functionalities for assessing historical changes in land condition. Relating those satellite-based assessments to on-the-ground information is key; however, many users have indicated that they lack the knowledge and resources to perform such analysis. Trends.Earth is partnering for this project with WOCAT and LandPKS to facilitate the integration of remotely sensed analysis with land management information collected though a mobile application. This will allow not only for systematic verification of degradation trends and monitoring of progress made under the LDN Target Setting Program, but also collecting land condition and management information on the ground which will be critical for posterior planning processes. Other freely available tools to assess land condition and change, such as Collect Earth, will be evaluated and integrated workflows will be developed to support user uptake. These assessments will be input for a simple decision support tool which will allow users to identify priorities for intervention at national and subnational scales. These tools and approaches will be tested in different geographies within a pilot country, providing case studies that will provide example applications for scaling the tool to a larger user base. A capacity building workshop, with equitable participation by women and men, focused on the integrated assessments using Trends.Earth, WOCAT, and LandPKS will take place in the pilot country.
Project Component 4: Support UNCCD and its signatory countries by building capacity to support planning, monitoring, and reporting: Since it was launched in late 2017, Trends.Earth has supported a user base of over 2,000 participants. With the enhancements and new modules to be added to the tool under the current proposed project, we expect that number to at least triple in the next 3 years. For that reason, it is critical to update and maintain documentation and training resources available through the project website, and to provide users with the required support and training, allowing for equitable participation by women and men. Updated documentation and online training courses will include guidelines for integrated assessments using Trends.Earth, LandPKS, WOCAT, and Collect Earth maximizing the utility of remotely sensed and field data, and local expert knowledge. To support UNCCD signatory countries on their reporting needs for the cycle 2021-2022, we will host a capacity building technical workshop at a UNCCD parties meeting, on tools and methods monitoring strategic objectives progress.
FUNDING
Provided by the Global Environment Facility (GEF)
Photo by Tristan Schnader