Under the theme “Restoring Land. Restoring Hope.”, the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP17) took place in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, from 17 to 28 August 2026, attracting over 16.000 registered participants. The conference brought together representatives of the UNCCD’s 197 Parties (196 countries and the European Union) alongside leaders from government, business and civil society, as well as scientists, young people, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists and smallholder farmers. They joined to address the interconnected challenges of desertification, land degradation and drought.
“ESA’s participation in UNCCD COP17 underscored the critical role that Earth observation plays in monitoring land degradation,” said Simonetta Cheli, ESA Director of Earth Observation Programmes.
ESA’s engagement at the conference reinforced its role as a key partner in providing data and tools for land degradation assessment, while supporting capacity building and policy development. This work is carried out in close collaboration with international partners including the European Commission, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Group on Earth Observations Land Degradation Neutrality Flagship (GEO-LDN).
The latter cooperation has been further strengthened by the appointment of ESA’s Anke Schickling as Co-Chair of GEO-LDN. Her new role brings additional Earth observation expertise to the Flagship and reinforces links between ESA and the wider GEO-LDN community.
Together, these partnerships promote the use of Earth observation data to support informed decisions on land degradation neutrality, land restoration and drought resilience.
From satellite observations to land degradation indicators
ESA’s activities at COP17 showcased several initiatives translating Earth observation capabilities into information that can support national reporting, land management and restoration.
The SEN4LDN project, implemented in partnership with the UNCCD Secretariat and GEO-LDN, develops and validates EO methods based primarily on Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data to increase the spatial detail of national land degradation assessments. By integrating high-resolution information on land-cover change and land-productivity dynamics, SEN4LDN aims to provide countries with more detailed information to plan and monitor LDN interventions at appropriate scales. Demonstrations are being carried out in Portugal, Uganda and Colombia.
The WORLDSOILS project addresses another key component of land degradation monitoring: soil organic carbon. The ESA-funded project is developing a pre-operational Soil Monitoring System that combines space-based EO data, soil archives and modelling techniques to generate yearly estimates of soil organic carbon at large scales. The system is designed to improve both the spatial resolution and accuracy of soil information, supporting applications ranging from soil reporting to land and agricultural management.
ESA experts also contributed directly to the scientific and technical discussions at COP17. These included technical advice to the Joint Session of the Committee on Science and Technology (CST) and the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC), in the session on “Support Hubs for Reporting and Technical Advisors: Connecting Global Methodologies with Regional Expertise”.
Further contributions addressed the challenges of monitoring and assessing land degradation in drylands, through a keynote and panel discussion organised by Mongolia’s National Center for Vegetation Cover Development and Combating Desertification (NCVC), and the role of Earth observation and artificial intelligence in supporting LDN reporting and interventions, in a session organised by the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS).
By expanding access to Earth observation data and tools through international partnerships, ESA is helping to strengthen global land degradation monitoring and support implementation of the UNCCD 2018–2030 Strategic Framework. The next UNCCD Conference of the Parties, COP18, is scheduled to take place in Egypt in 2028.