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The international community pressed for a treaty to tackle the growing physical and human crisis of desertification at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The Convention to Combat Desertification, the first legally binding international agreement on the problem, was agreed on in 1994. It promotes a bottom-up approach that starts with the people actually affected by the crisis and replaces…

The ESA DesertWatch project goal was to develop an Information System for assessing and monitoring desertification using EO technologies, in order to support local authorities in reporting to the UNCCD. The project has selected the most robust and reliable methodologies developed during the related research projects, integrating them into a unique environment, which is easy to use,…

This publication collects the results of a practical experience of survey, through the direct control of satellite images from high to medium resolution, over areas subjected to desertification problems. The problems of the local population are closely tied to the equilibrium in the management of the territory, which is compromised by the difficulties of maintaining traditional methodologies of…

The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD, 2005-2014), offers an opportunity to rethink the manner in which we approach global challenges. Since its international launch in New York on 1st March 2005, the DESD has made considerable progress in terms of concrete activities and actions on the ground. Apart from the regional and national launches, progress has been…

To produce food, water is consumed by the plants in the field through evaporation and transpiration. The amount of water needed varies with crops and depends from place to place, on local productivity and conditions of available water supply through rainfall or irrigation. Once the product is harvested and becomes available on the market, the water embedded in the product changes status from …

Established in 1994, the United Nations to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management. The Convention addresses specifically the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, known as the drylands, where some of the most vulnerable ecosystems and peoples can be found. The 10-year strategic plan…