SDG 15.3.1 - Proportion of land that is degraded over total land area (Percentage(%))
Definitions: Land degradation is defined as the reduction or loss of the biological or economic productivity and
complexity of rain fed cropland, irrigated cropland, or range, pasture, forest and woodlands resulting from a combination of pressures, including land use and management practices. This definition was adopted by and is used by the 196 countries that are Party to the UNCCD. SDG indicator 15.3.1 is a binary - degraded/not degraded - quantification based on the analysis of available data for three sub-indicators to be validated and reported by national authorities. The subindicators (Trends in Land Cover, Land Productivity and Carbon Stocks) were adopted by the UNCCD’s governing body in 2013 as part of its monitoring and evaluation approach.
As the custodian agency for SDG 15.3, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has developed a Good Practice Guidance - GPG, which provides guidance for reporting SDG Indicator 15.3.1: the proportion of land that is degraded over total land area. As a key indicator for monitoring restoration progress for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, FAO has been collaborating with the UNCCD and Conservation International to enable consistent land degradation monitoring at the local to national scale. Trends.Earth is a free and open-source tool developed by Conservation International that supports the calculation of SDG 15.3.1 indicator and sub-indicators, vegetation productivity, land cover and soil organic carbon. Consistent with the methodology used in Trends.Earth and the GPG, a new module in SEPAL calculates SDG 15.3.1 and its sub-indicators utilizing Landsat and Sentinel data to estimate the indicator at a sub-national scale. Project scale monitoring using SDG 15.3.1 can provide consistent information across multiple scales, making global, national, sub-national and project scale data comparable. The module is accessible to SEPAL users in the SDG indicator module. To utilise the module users need to visit SEPAL and register.
Further reading: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-15-03-01.pdf
Ecosystems: Farmland; Forests; Grasslands; Shrublands and Savannahs; Peatlands
Importance for ecosystem restoration:“Maintain or improve the sustainable delivery of ecosystem services. Recognize ecological functions of different ecosystems; protect or restore vulnerable natural and managed ecosystems and safeguard the services these provide for the long term, in the face of global environmental change” (Orr et al. 2017)
The sub-indicators trends in land cover, land productivity, and carbon stocks are considered proxies to monitor the key factors and driving variables that reflect the capacity to deliver land-based ecosystem services because land degradation directly affects land-based natural capital and ecosystem services (Orr et al. 2017). Therefore, a decrease in the extent of land degradation has a direct impact on the recovery and restoration of ecosystems
References:
Orr, B.J., Cowie, A.L., Castillo Sanchez, V.M., Chasek, P., Crossman, N.D., Erlewein, A., Louwagie, G., Maron, M., Metternicht, G.I., Minelli, S., Tengberg, A.E., Walter, S., Welton, S. (2017). Scientific Conceptual Framework for Land Degradation Neutrality. A Report of the Science Policy Interface. United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Bonn, Germany.
