Monitoring land degradation from space

Abstract

Unsustainable practices and increasing pressure on soil jeopardise the achievement of land degradation neutrality, targeted by 2030. Land degradation is costing billions in terms of land restoration and is heavily impacting human health and climate change. Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) target 15.3 focuses on the issue, and several methodologies are proposed to address land degradation. However, all present some limitations in terms of accuracy. This paper aims to present a more comprehensive approach based on the application of remote sensing technology. We show that the Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery archives can be used on the one hand to detect the current soil conditions, on the other hand to predict the future balance of Soil Organic Carbon (SOC). A case study illustrates that SOC, tillage and bare soil are key quality indexes that can facilitate quantifying and achieving a land degradation-neutral world.