Version 2 of the Good Practice Guidance for Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 15.3.1 informs the work of Parties, particularly on monitoring and understanding the status of land cover, land productivity and soil organic carbon stocks using Earth observation data. These are the three major variables used to measure SDG indicator 15.3.1 - Proportion of land that is degraded over total land area.

The new version is more advanced in the analytical methods for calculating the Indicator, and reflects current best practice, data and knowledge. Originally published in 2017, this guidance has been rapidly adopted by country Parties. In 2018, 127 country Parties were able to report information on SDG indicator 15.3.1 showing that about one fifth of the Earth’s land area (more than 2 billion hectares) is degraded.

This rapid uptake was due in part to a close collaboration between the UNCCD, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), which produced the guidance for the UNCCD, and Conservation International, which made data and models accessible through an open-source software product called Trends.Earth. This highly collaborative approach is continuing today under the auspices of the Group on Earth Observation Land Degradation Neutrality (GEO LDN) Initiative. Publication Coordinator: Sara Minelli Design and layout: DesignEID