Under the theme Our Land Our Future, the 16th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP16) took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 2 to 13 December 2024, attracting more than 24,000 registered participants. The COP is the main decision-making body of UNCCD’s 197 Parties – 196 countries and the European Union to raise global ambition and accelerate investment and action on land restoration and boost drought resilience through a people-centred approach. At the end of the event over $12 billion were secured for land restoration and drought resilience initiatives.
ESA participation to COP 16 underscored the critical role of Earth Observation in land degradation monitoring. ESA’s involvement reinforced its role as a key partner providing data for land degradation assessment and tools provision, capacity building, and policy support, working closely with international organisations the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Group on Earth Observations Land Degradation Neutrality Flagship (GEO-LDN). These partnerships focus on using EO data to enable informed decision-making on land degradation neutrality, land restoration and drought resilience.
Key ESA contributions and collaborations conducted at UNCCD COP 16 included:
- Contribution to the first Joint Session of the Committee on Science and Technology (CST) and the Committee on the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC) at the COP-16: Promote free and open Sentinel data (primarily Sentinel 1 and Sentinel 2) to monitor the changes in land cover, land productivity and above and below ground carbon stocks, with the aim of helping countries to better define their LDN targets and report on their progress under the UNCCD progress indicators on the condition of affected ecosystems, and the SDG 15.3.1 indicator on the extent of degraded lands.
- SEN4LDN project: Introduced at UNCCD COP16. In partnership with the UNCCD secretariat and the GEO LDN initiative ESA’s SEN4LDN project, develops, demonstrates, validates, and showcases new EO methodologies to increase the spatial details of national land degradation assessments and enable countries to plan Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) interventions at appropriate scales.
- WORLDSOILS project: Introduced at UNCCD COP16. ESA’s WORLDSOILS project aims to develop a pre-operational Soil Monitoring System to provide yearly estimations of Soil Organic Carbon (SOC), exploiting space-based EO data leveraging large soil data archives and modelling techniques to improve the spatial resolution and accuracy of SOC.
- Keynote and panel discussion on Acting on COP – Decisions – Advancing High-Resolution Geodata and Facilitating Access to Earth Observation Tools for National LDN Targets organised by GEO-LDN.
- Contribution to the side event on Novel Earth observation technologies and approaches for monitoring land productivity and cover changes to address complex land degradation pathways across continental and national boundaries organised by JRC and FAO.
- Keynote and panel discussion on Evidence-Based Analysis of SDG 15.3.1 in Africa: Leveraging Innovative Tools for Land Degradation Monitoring and Reporting session co-organized with OSS (Sahara and Sahel Observatory).
By enhancing the use of EO data and tools through partnerships, ESA is poised to play a pivotal role in monitoring global land degradation, advancing the UNCCD 2018−2030 Strategic Framework. The upcoming UNCCD COP17 will take place in Mongolia in 2026.
