Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) is “a state whereby the amount and quality of land resources, necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security, remains stable or increases within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems”. Restoring degraded ecosystems is crucial for achieving the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, LDN and for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including the goal 15.3 (By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world).

Led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Decade on Restoration - which runs from 2021 to 2030 - was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in a 2019 resolution. Land degradation (SDG15.3.1) is one of the priority indicators being considered for ecosystem monitoring under this initiative. 

The UN Convention to combat Desertification (UNCCD), as Custodian Agency for SDG Indicator 15.3. 1, ensures high quality and accuracy in global reporting on progress towards SDG 15. In parallel, the GEO Land Degradation Neutrality Initiative (GEO LDN) brings together Earth observation data providers and governments to develop minimum data quality standards, analytical tools and capacity building needed to strengthen land degradation monitoring and reporting, using remote sensing and data collected on site.

Leveraging the increased access to higher resolution earth observation data, analytical and processing capacity, FAO has developed, based on the latest Good Practice Guidance for SDG indicator 15.3.1 and SEPAL cloud-computing and satellite image processing platform (http://sepal.io), an online module to provide high spatial (up to 10m) and temporal resolution information to track SDG 15.3.1. The tool allows customized user-specific applications and the preparation of local-to-national scale geospatial SDG indicator 15.3.1.

As a part of stakeholder collaboration, knowledge sharing and improvement, a meeting was organized on 3 December 2021 by experts from GEO LDN and UNCCD with the objective to present the SEPAL module and functionalities. Next steps for enhanced collaboration and technical improvement were discussed. The presentation started with a brief description of the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring (FERM). Input data specifications for the SEPAL module were presented along with the interface of the module. Comparison between results obtained from different approaches (i.e., GPG version 1 and version 2, input data (i.e., Landsat and MODIS) and implementations (i.e., Trends.Earth and SEPAL module) were also presented followed by identification of sources for improved consistency. Amit Ghosh, geospatial expert in the Geospatial Unit of the Land and Water Division, presented the latest improvements and stressed the importance of bringing new technologies to the local level.