Earth Observations in Support of Monitoring Land Degradation and Sustainable Cities SDGs

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. Land management SDGs call for consistent tracking of land cover metrics. These metrics include productivity, land cover, soil carbon, urban expansion, and more. This campus will demonstrate the use of Earth Observations to assist in achieving SDGs 11 and 15 and indicators related to sustainable urbanization and land use and cover change. In this training, attendees will learn to use a freely-available QGIS plugin, Trends.Earth, created by Conservation International and co-developed with United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and UN Habitat, custodian agencies of SDG 15.3.1 and 11.3.1 respectively, in support of country reporting needs. The result will be a greater understanding of the data tools that exist, their utility, and how it fits into the overarching IUCN policies and programmes.