SDG 15 - Life on land

sdg 15

Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss

Forests cover 30.7 per cent of the Earth’s surface and, in addition to providing food security and shelter, they are key to combating climate change, protecting biodiversity and the homes of the indigenous population. By protecting forests, we will also be able to strengthen natural resource management and increase land productivity.

At the current time, thirteen million hectares of forests are being lost every year while the persistent degradation of drylands has led to the desertification of 3.6 billion hectares. Even though up to 15% of land is currently under protection, biodiversity is still at risk. Deforestation and desertification – caused by human activities and climate change – pose major challenges to sustainable development and have affected the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in the fight against poverty.

Efforts are being made to manage forests and combat desertification. There are two international agreements being implemented currently that promote the use of resources in an equitable way. Financial investments in support of biodiversity are also being provided.

The Lion’s Share Fund

On 21 June, 2018, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), FINCH and founding partner Mars, Incorporated, announced the Lion’s Share, an initiative aimed at transforming the lives of animals across the world by asking advertisers to contribute a percentage of their media spend to conservation and animal welfare projects.  The Lion’s Share will see partners contribute 0.5 percent of their media spend to the fund for each advertisement they use featuring an animal. Those funds will be used to support animals and their habitats around the world. The Fund is seeking to raise US$100m a year within three years, with the money being invested in a range of wildlife conservation and animal welfare programs to be implemented by United Nations and civil society organizations.

Facts and Figures

Forests

  •     Around 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihood, including 70 million indigenous people.
  •     Forests are home to more than 80 per cent of all terrestrial species of animals, plants and insects.
  •     Between 2010 and 2015, the world lost 3.3 million hectares of forest areas. Poor rural women depend on common pool resources and are especially affected by their depletion.

Desertification

  •     6 billion people depend directly on agriculture, but 52 per cent of the land used for agriculture is moderately or severely affected by soil degradation.
  •     Arable land loss is estimated at 30 to 35 times the historical rate
  •     Due to drought and desertification, 12 million hectares are lost each year (23 hectares per minute). Within one year, 20 million tons of grain could have been grown.
  •     74 per cent of the poor are directly affected by land degradation globally.

Biodiversity

  •     Illicit poaching and trafficking of wildlife continues to thwart conservation efforts, with nearly 7,000 species of animals and plants reported in illegal trade involving 120 countries.
  •     Of the 8,300 animal breeds known, 8 per cent are extinct and 22 per cent are at risk of extinction.
  •     Of the over 80,000 tree species, less than 1 per cent have been studied for potential use.
  •     Fish provide 20 per cent of animal protein to about 3 billion people. Only ten species provide about 30 per cent of marine capture fisheries and ten species provide about 50 per cent of aquaculture production.
  •     Over 80 per cent of the human diet is provided by plants. Only three cereal crops – rice, maize and wheat – provide 60 per cent of energy intake.
  •     As many as 80 per cent of people living in rural areas in developing countries rely on traditional plant-­‐based medicines for basic healthcare.
  •     Micro-organisms and invertebrates are key to ecosystem services, but their contributions are still poorly known and rarely acknowledged.

Space-based Technologies for SDG 15

Protecting nature and biodiversity is an increasingly important challenge for humanity.
Satellite technology can be used to track endangered species and disrupt the poaching activities that drive the illegal wildlife trade.
UNOOSA helps stakeholders in biodiversity and wildlife management use space applications to monitor, assess and manage biodiversity and ecosystems.
http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/psa/emnrm/biodiversity.html

 

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Overview

Data recipes are video tutorials that include step-by-step instructions to help users learn how to discover, access, subset, visualize and use Earth science data, information, tools and services. These recipes cover many different data products across the Earth science disciplines and different processing languages/software.
 

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Event

2nd WASAG International Forum 2023

International Conference on Environmental and Water Resources Engineering

Stockholm+50: a healthy planet for the prosperity of all – our responsibility, our opportunity

LAND4FLOOD Conference 2023

5th Space for Hydrology Workshop

United Nations/China Forum on Space Solutions

United Nations/Ghana/PSIPW - 5th International conference on the use of space technology for water resources management

Multi-Stakeholder Thematic Webinars: Preparing for the Water Conference and the Water Action Agenda

Water, Wastewater & Environmnetal Modelling

International Conference on: “Soil & Water Resources Management for Combating Desertification in Drylands under Climate Change”

IUCN World Conservation Congress

United Nations/Austria World Space Forum 'Access to Space4All'

39th International Sympsonium on Remote Sensing of Environment

8th Biennial UF Water Institute Symposium

World Wetlands Day 2023: It’s time to wetland restoration

World Water Week

RCMRD International Conference 2023

The 15th Asia-Oceania Group on Earth Observations (AOGEO) Symposium

2022 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium - IGARSS 2022

Open-Earth-Monitor Global Workshop 2023

Geo Week

Participatory workshop for indigenous women on their roles and responsibilities related to water

Participatory workshop for indigenous women on their roles and responsibilities related to water

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register here until 21 August 2022 - if you would like to be considered for funding

In many places around the world women are responsible for water collection, a responsibility that globally takes them 200 million hours annually. It often leaves them with little to no time for school, work or to spend time with their family. Furthermore, indigenous communities' cultural heritage and knowledge about natural resources, including water, urgently needs to be considered and protected.

9th International Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformation of Environment (RSCy2023)

14th International Conference on Hydroinformatics HIC 2022 − Water INFLUENCE

5th COSPAR Symposium: Space Science with Small Satellites

Local Perspectives Case Studies

Need for wetlands inventory

Lacking historic knowledge on vegetation cover and surface water extent / river course

Lacking historic knowledge on vegetation cover and surface water extent / river course

Long view of Ngakoahia Stream and surrounding vegetation
The Māori community has Ngakoaohia River running through the customary lands and currently there are no records or knowledge of the river, so the community is not able to use it for any particular function. There is lack of understanding historical land use and land cover surrounding the river. Historical data is essential for understanding where things were planted or where was vegetation in order to be able to decide what plant are suitable for our location. So, the planting will help with the land, stabilising the riverbanks and help with plant life as well. We must work in unity with our environment, so historical data will help not to make ill informed decisions that will be detrimental to the environment.
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Need for technical assistance to identify new water sources such as springs within the forest, in Guatemala

Potential consequences due to the melting Athabasca glacier, Canada

Potential consequences due to the melting Athabasca glacier, Canada

Althabasca Delta
The Athabasca glacier is our source of water and it is being reduced significantly because of climate change. We need to understand what is the data showing from the increases in temperature due to climate change, will the melting glacier increase more water loading in the Athabasca River, will that cause more flooding and at what point will we have no more glacier? What are the future predictions for the glacier as our source water? This information we will enable us to make a decision on whether we need to relocate or not. On the Peace River side, there are three hydroelectric projects, and we are talking to the companies to see if they can release water in the delta. But we need data to understand how much water they can release in the delta without causing flooding in the other areas. For example, how much water need released and in which season in order to have a healthy ecosystem downstream. Another set of data that will be useful is about landform stability. For example, tailings ponds are built to international dam standards, so if there are landform changes there could be consequences of tailings breach where the tailings will basically give out the dam will fail. We need digital topography modelling to understand what will happen in cases where tailing breach and how catastrophic that event will be.
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Need for data on snow quality which is assumed to be affected by runoff and emissions from industrial use

Project / Mission / Initiative / Community Portal

WMO Hydrological Observing System Portal

WMO Hydrological Observing System Portal

WMO logo

Currently, WHOS makes available three data portals allowing users to easily leverage common WHOS functionalities such as data discovery and data access, on the web by means of common web browsers. For more information on WHOS data and available tools, please refer to the Section WHOS web services and supported tools.

WHOS-Global Portal provides all hydrometeorological data shared through WHOS. WHOS-Global Portal is implemented using the Water Data Explorer application.

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e-shape

e-shape

e-Shape Logo

e-shape is a unique initiative that brings together decades of public investment in Earth Observation and in cloud capabilities into services for the decision-makers, the citizens, the industry and the researchers. It allows Europe to position itself as global force in Earth observation through leveraging Copernicus, making use of existing European capacities and improving user uptake of the data from GEO assets.  EuroGEO, as Europe's contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), aims at bringing together Earth Observation resources in Europe.

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Stakeholder

The United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS)

The United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS)

The United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS) is a research and training institute of the United Nations University. UNU is a global network of institutes and programs engaged in research and capacity development to support the universal goals of the UN. It brings together leading scholars from around the world with a view to generate strong and innovative knowledge on how to tackle pressing global problems. UNU-CRIS focuses on the study of processes of global cooperation and regional integration and their implications.

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Remote Sensing, GIS and Climatic Research Lab, University of the Punjab

Remote Sensing, GIS and Climatic Research Lab, University of the Punjab

The emerging demand of GIS and Space Applications for Climate Change studies for the socio-economic development of Pakistan along with Government of Pakistan Vision 2025, Space Vision 2047 of National Space Agency of Pakistan, and achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) impelled the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) to establish Remote Sensing, GIS and Climatic Research Lab (RSGCRL) at University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan.

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Satsense Solutions Limited

Satsense Solutions Limited

Satsense Solutions Logo

Satsense Solutions Limited is a start-up company that uses satellite earth observation to develop business and governance solutions addressing the challenges of resource management, climate change and sustainable development. It has developed and deployed several applications in the Water Resources, Hydropower, Mining and Infrastructure sectors. These include assessments of eutrophication levels in lakes and reservoirs and sedimentation rates at hydropower plants. Identification of pollution in rivers, acid mine drainage and tailings at mining sites.

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Tribhuvan University, Institute of Forestry, Pokhara

Tribhuvan University, Institute of Forestry, Pokhara

The Institute of Forestry, Pokhara Campus (IOF-PC), Quality Assurance Accreditation (QAA) certified institution by the UGC, Nepal in September 2022, was established in 1981 as the Central Campus of the Institute of Forestry, one of the five technical institutes under Tribhuvan University, Nepal. The IOF, founded as Nepal Forestry Institute in Singh Durbar, Kathmandu, in 1947, was shifted to Suping (BhimPhedi) in 1957 and again to Hetauda in 1965.

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Publication

Status and outlook of the Space4Water Project of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs: three years of Space4Water

Software/Tool/(Web-)App

ISME-HYDRO

ISME-HYDRO

ISME-HYDRO is a platform that helps monitor water resources of dams, thus enabling water resources managers to better execute their duties. It employs linked data infrastructure integrating in-situ measurements, satellite data, GIS data, domain knowledge, deep learning, and provides capabilities of forecasting of water volumes, of alerting for hazardous situations, of interaction with the data through four kinds of search and GIS interactivity. The platform is easily extendable and customizable.

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Space-based Solution

Vegetation classfication for land of Maori communtiy - in development

Addressed challenge(s)
Collaborating actors (stakeholders, professionals, young professionals or Indigenous voices)
Suggested solution

Note: this description is work in progress developed by the collaborating entities in a workshop. If you would like to contribute reach out to office@space4water.org, or your trusted Space4Water point of contact.

1. Data collection

To collect historic and high-resolution up-to-date imagery over the area, UNOOSA contacted the Land and Information New Zealand Data Service, which provided both historic aerial imagery and LIDAR data sources.

Historic data for the relevant land patch can be accessed via the Retrolens New Zealand Service.

Up-to-date aerial photos of the area can be accessed here at the New Zealand Data Service. Tile 503 and 603 are the ones of interest.

Relevant Landsat data available from 1989. For the study area, Landsat 7 data is available from 2 July 1999, and Landsat 4 from 2 February 1989.

HydroSHEDS: The core data products of HydroSHEDS are a series of gridded datasets designed for use in hydro-environmental model development and custom GIS applications. Data layers include the original digital elevation model (DEM) that underpins HydroSHEDS, a hydrologically conditioned version of the DEM, the derived flow direction and flow accumulation grids, as well as land mask and sink grids. These data products form the digital foundation of the derived secondary data products. HydroSHEDS core data products are currently available for HydroSHEDS v1 only, which is mostly based on SRTM elevation data. HydroSHEDS v2, which is derived from TanDEM-X elevation data, is currently under development and is scheduled for release in 2022.

A digital elevation model (DEM) is available at 30m resolution by Copernicus is availble at the Terrascope website.

2. Vegetation identification

Using NDVI allows for identifying the type of vegetation but not the specific species. One can see whether the type of vegetation has changed from trees to grassland, but specific plants cannot be seen.

Retrolense provides aerial photographs taken from an airplane at which the relevant bands for NDVI calcluation (infrared and red) are missing.

We can examine vegetation cover over the last 30+ years using NDVI with Landsat data.

For future reference/documentation purposes, if the Maori community can conduct a community survey in which elders are asked for tree or animal species on the land for the past 40 to 50 years, it can be benficial. These could be used as ground data.

A study called Aerial photography for assessing vegetation change: a review of applications and the relevance of findings for Australian vegetation history by Fensham and Fairfax published in 2022 in the Australian Journal of Botany and on the CSIRO page is accessible here.

 

Links to Space4Water resources that are part of the solution
Keywords (for the solution)
Land useLand Cover DataNormalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)
Climate Zone (addressed by the solution)
Oceanic
Habitat (addressed by the solution)
Region/Country (the solution was designed for, if any)
New Zealand
Relevant SDGs