Land degradation estimation by SDG 15.3.1 computed at the local scale: the case of the six Mediterranean study sites of the NewLife4Drylands project

Abstract

In 2015, during the 12th Conference of the Parties (COP) a new overall vision objective of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 called “Achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN)” was incorporated. NewLife4Drylands (NL4DL; https://www.newlife4drylands.eu/), the LIFE Preparatory project, focuses on the use of remote sensing for the identification of a framework for the monitoring of land degradation and results of nature-based restoration interventions for achieving LDN. With this aim, Indicators and/or their proxies have been extracted from satellite data as essential variables for land degradation status assessment. Six Mediterranean Natura 2000 study sites located in Italy, Greece and Spain were considered as case studies and pressures and threats affecting each of them were analysed as land cover mappings, burn severity mappings, time series of climatic and phenology spectral indices, precipitation indices, soil organic carbon mappings.  Freely available satellite data from Landsat and Sentinel-2 programs were considered: in the case of sites less than 50 hectares in size, commercial satellite data at very high spatial resolution were used for evaluation. The indices analyzed will be integrated for the computation of SDG 15.3.1 indicator “proportion of land that is degraded over the total land area” according to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and UNCCD guidelines. SDG 15.3.1 standard formula considers sub-indicators to be integrated: trends in land cover, primary productivity and soil organic carbon. The novelty in the project outcomes is two-fold: 1) the estimation of drivers/disturbance (drought, fire, etc.) of LDN together with sub-indicators will allow to give practical indication to land manager; 2) sub-indicators have been computed at the local scale. For each study site, short-term and long-term analyses will be approached. Results will be part of a protocol for the assessment of land degradation and monitoring restoration interventions of degraded land.