Land degradation is a global environment and development issue recognized by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, the Conventions on Biodiversity and Climatic Change, and the Millennium Goals. Up-to-date, quantitative information is needed to support policy and action for food and water security, economic development, environmental integrity, and resource conservation. To meet this need, ISRIC - World Soil Information has been undertaking a Global Assessment of Land Degradation and Improvement (GLADA) for GEF/UNEP within the Land project of FAO.
Degradation in Drylands, using consistent remotely-sensed normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data as well as ancillary data to identify areas where significant biological change is happening, both hot spots of biomass decline and bright spots of improvement are mapped. However, the decrease in biomass may not necessarily imply land degradation, nor may the increase in biomass necessarily indicate land improvement; the findings still need to be verified.
The project will verify the identified hot/bright spots with existing long-term land use/cover data to establish the situation on the ground in the land-use sensitive northern Chaco region of Argentina.
ISRIC closely cooperates with the University of Buenos Aires (Prof. Jorge Adamoli), Argentina.