OEMC project use case: Land Degradation Neutrality tool to support LDN initiative

Description

The UNITED NATIONS Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) currently measures Land Degradation Neutrality at 300 m spatial resolution, while the modern open EO data is available publicly at finer resolutions even up to 10 m resolution. To make LDN data more usable and matching the field conditions, OEMC project aims at developing open source tools for measuring land potential and productivity at higher resolution (up to 30 m) and providing analysis ready data in a distributed system with Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFFs. The critical challenges for UNCCD recognized include: (1) how to get the best open data products to countries so they can track status of environment and produce national reports, (2) how to choose between multiple (e.g. there are now over 15 land cover products) data sets without requiring significant resources to deal with the data complexity, (3) how to help enable countries with limited resources to track land degradation at comparable levels to the most developed countries. UNCCD is primarily focused on national activities and activities in connection with various international COP's.

Stakeholder needs: 

• High resolution analysis ready data that matches UNCCD LDN methodological requirements (land cover, primary productivity, soil organic carbon etc).
• Easy to use tools (visual) for users to generate and download simple reports that are decision-ready and match LDN requirements.

Planned implementation:

To enable transition of the LDN programme to 30 m resolution, the OEMC project is working together with UNCCD and the GEO-LDN to select next generation data sets for higher resolution assessment of potential land degradation. This includes: 

• producing ensemble products such as Ensemble Global Land Cover at 30 m for 2000–2023+,
• producing high resolution GPP and similar biophysical indices,
• developing cyberinfrastructures that are open, distributed and easy to use to run computing and produce decision-ready maps.

To speed up these implementations, OEMC project has organized Hackathons: Land cover mapping and machine learning + Global-FAPAR.

Use-case on OEMC website: https://earthmonitor.org/land-degradation-neutrality-tool/ 

Recorded talks (ordered chronologically):

• "Data and governance gaps in the context of achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (SDG Target 15.3)" by Barron Orr, Open-Earth-Monitor — Global Workshop 2022;
• "Time-series reconstruction in remote sensing data" by Davide Consoli, Open-Earth-Monitor science webinars;
• "Mapping land potential and tracking land degradation using EO data" by Julia Hackländer, Open-Earth-Monitor — Global Workshop 2023;
• "Actual and potential habitat and vegetation type mapping to support conservation science" by Martin Jung, Open-Earth-Monitor — Global Workshop 2024;

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