Gateway to a Global Community of Sustainable Land Management
E-learning course on using land-cover information to monitor SDG 15
Update: The course is now available in Spanish: Uso de la información sobre la cubierta terrestre para hacer un seguimiento de los progresos relativos al ODS 15.
On 21 March 2024 (International Day of Forests), a new e-learning course—Using Land-Cover Information to Monitor Progress on Sustainable Development Goal 15—was launched. It is a joint effort of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the GEO-LDN Flagship, and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
The course explains how land-cover data support tracking of SDG 15, sustainable forest management, combating desertification, responding to land degradation, and protecting biodiversity, with a focus on indicators 15.3.1 (proportion of degraded land over total land area) and 15.4.2 (mountain green cover index / proportion of degraded mountain land).
Structured as five self-paced lessons (≈35 minutes each), it covers:
- Introduction to land cover and land-cover data
- Using land cover for reporting with international standards
- Land-cover change as an indicator of land degradation
- Computing and reporting on SDG 15.3.1
- Computing and reporting on SDG 15.4.2
Designed primarily for government technical officers responsible for SDG reporting, the course is also useful for professionals in environmental monitoring and natural resource management. It is free via the FAO e-learning Academy; participants who complete the final assessment receive a digital badge.
By improving the use of land-cover information, the course strengthens countries’ capacity to monitor environmental change, track land restoration and degradation, inform decisions on sustainable land management, and advance Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN).
Access the course via the FAO e-learning Academy.
