Workshop by UN-GGIM & GEO

Towards a Sustainable Operational System for Land Cover Classifications (By Invitation only)

Purpose of Workshop

The workshop will bring key global land cover experts together to discuss a strategic approach towards a sustainable system that can generate land cover datasets according to specific user requirements and harmonised land cover classifications.

Target Audience

Domain experts from around the world will be invited. All interested participants of GWF are welcome to attend.

Length of Workshop

Monday, 23 May: 1330-1730 hrs
Tuesday 24 May: 0900-1730 hrs

Detailed description of workshop

Land cover and land cover change (LCCCC) are important parameters needed by many users, including national governments. As key environmental data, understanding LCLCC is now needed to track progress towards meeting new commitments such as the Sustainable Development Goals, the Aichi Targets of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, and a variety of national and sub-national internal goals. Some users require nationally to globally consistent approaches to measuring LCLCC, while national governments need consistency at the national level. However, despite its importance, the availability of appropriate LCLCC information remains limited and does not yet sufficiently meet user needs. Not only do different users have widely different needs, particularly in terms of the number and types of classes, the frequency of updates, and spatial resolution, but generating LCLCC information is difficult and expensive, typically requiring very significant human resources. This problem is further complicated because coordination among users, among providers, and between users and providers is limited, thus limiting progress in addressing these shortcomings. Furthermore, although some global datasets are available their accuracy varies spatially, making their usefulness in national or sub-national applications quite limited. This range of user needs and other complications presently make it impossible for a single global dataset, for example, to be sufficient in satisfying those needs. A new approach to generating and providing LCLCC information is needed that can both meet such varied user requirements and still be operationally practical and sustainable.