Description
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an urgent call for action by countries to preserve our oceans and forests, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth. The land management SDGs call for consistent tracking of land cover metrics. These metrics include productivity, land cover, soil carbon, urban expansion, and more. This training series led by NASA's Applied Remote Sensing Training program (ARSET) highlights a tool that uses NASA Earth Observations to track land degradation and urban development that meet the appropriate SDG targets.
SDGs 11 and 15 relate to sustainable urbanization and land use and land cover change. SDG 11 aims to "make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable." SDG 15 aims to "combat desertification, drought, and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation neutral world." To assess progress towards these goals, indicators have been established, many of which can be monitored using remote sensing.
In this training, attendees learn to use a freely-available QGIS plugin, Trends.Earth, created by Conservation International (CI), and includes special guest speakers from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and UN Habitat. Trends.Earth allows users to plot time series of key land change indicators. Attendees can learn to produce maps and figures to support monitoring and reporting on land degradation, improvement, and urbanization for SDG indicators 15.3.1 and 11.3.1. Each part of the training series features a presentation, hands-on exercise, and time for the speaker to answer live questions.