Monitoring and Assessment

Assessment and monitoring of the environment is an essential requirement for the sustainable management of natural resource, environmental protection, food security, humanitarian programmes, social and economic development as well as dealing with issues related to climate change.

To be able to attribute the causes of climate change, analyse the potential impacts, evaluate the adaptation options and enable the characterization of extreme events such as flood, droughts and heat waves, globally consistent monitoring need to be undertaken. Such information is also an important prerequisite in the development and implementation of international agreements related to mitigation issues such as incentives in Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).

Activities

FAO supports and undertakes a number of monitoring and assessment activities. For examples, FAO works actively and globally in partnership with, currently, 55 countries to improve and establish long-term and robust monitoring systems of forest, based on systematic field sampling and data collection. At international level, FAO supports countries to report to the Global Forest Resources Assessments (FRA), which is the leading global reporting process on forests, their management and use. In addition FAO continues to work in close collaboration with its member countries to help them to meet their international requirements and obligations such as forest carbon reporting. At national level, FAO has been engaged in assessments of climate change impact on crop yields and food security and capacity building for climate change adaptation.

FAO also undertakes a number of land cover mapping initiatives, including the assessment and monitoring of land cover change, through a number of programmes and initiatives (e.g. the Global Land Cover Network (GLCN). FAO is also supporting the development of standards (such as the Land Cover Classification System – LCCS) which are required to ensure harmonization of data and the development of regional and global data sets. Other important monitoring activities are also undertaken for fire and water availability.

In addition, FAO hosts the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS) which has the mandate to improve the quality, coverage and accessibility of terrestrial ecosystem data required to detect, quantify, understand and warn of changes in ecosystem. In particular GTOS supports the implementation of the 13 terrestrial Essential Climate Variables which have been identified as fundamental observations required by the UNFCCC to achieve its objectives.

Key FAO Links 

Contact

Page content: Reuben.Sessa@fao.org (NRCE)
Environment, Climate Change and Bioenergy Division: NRC-Director@fao.org
Land and Water Division: NRL-Director@fao.org
Forest Products and Industry Division: FOI-Director@fao.org

Publications

FAO. 2008. FAO datasets on land use, land use change, agriculture and forestry and their applicability for national greenhouse gas reporting.. In A background paper for the IPCC Expert meeting on Guidance on Greenhouse Gas Inventories of Land Uses such as Agriculture and Forestry. Helsinki, Finland 13-15 May 2008, (available at http://www.fao.org/climatechange/media/15534/0/0/.)
FAO. 2008. Rapid Agricultural Disaster Assessment Routine (RADAR). 12, Rome, FAO. (available at http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0183e/i0183e00.htm.)
FAO. 2008. Terrestrial essential climatic variables for climate change monitoring, mitigation and adaptation. Rome, FAO. (available at ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a1430e/a1430e.pdf.)
FAO. 2008. Terrestrial observations of our planet. (available at ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/A1424e/A1424e00.pdf.)
FAO, UN-Water. 2008. Water monitoring: Mapping existing global systems & initiatives. (available at http://www.fao.org/nr/wman/abst/wman_080101_en.htm.)
FAO. 2007. Forest Monitoring and assesment for climate change reporting:partnerships, capacity building and delivery. Rome, FAO. (available at http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/k1276e/k1276e00.htm.)
GTOS. 2007. A Framework for Terrestrial Climate-Related Observations:Implementation Option. In Progress Report to the 26th Meeting of the Subsidary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBTSA), Rome, GTOS. (available at http://www.fao.org/gtos/doc/pub48.pdf.)
GTOS. 2007. Assesing the Status of the Development of Stanards for the Essential Climate Variables in the Terrestrial Domain. In Progress Report to the 26th Meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, (available at http://www.fao.org/gtos/doc/pub49.pdf.)
GTOS. 2006. Global Terrestrial Observing System 2004-2005. Rome, FAO. (available at http://www.fao.org/gtos/gtospub/pub40.html.)
GTOS. 2006. Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries: Considerations for Monitoring and Measuring. Rome, GTOS. (available at ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/A1424e/A1424e01.pdf.)
UN-Water/FAO. 2006. Water Monitoring. Mapping Existing Global Systems & Initiatives. UN-Water. (available at http://www.fao.org/nr/water/docs/UNW_MONITORING_REPORT.pdf.)
FAO. 2004. Assesing carbon stocks and modelling win-win scenarios of carbon sequestration through land-use changes. Rome, FAO. (available at http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5490e/y5490e00.htm.)
FAO. 2003. Guidelines for establishing audits of Agricultural-Environmental hotspots. Rome, FAO. (available at http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/006/Y5086E/Y5086E00.HTM.)
FAO. 2002. DATA SETS, INDICATORS AND METHODS TO ASSESS LAND DEGRADATION IN DRYLANDS. Rome, FAO. (available at ftp://ftp.fao.org/agl/agll/docs/wsrr100.pdf.)
FAO & IIASA. 2002. Global Agro-Ecological Assessment for Agriculture in the 21st Century. Rome, FAO, IIASA. (available at http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/SAEZ/index.html.)
last updated: Monday, September 21, 2009