Target 15.1: By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements.

This target aims to ensure sustainable management and monitoring, and use of terrestrial ecosystems including freshwater ecosystems and their restoration. It is an ambitious target which considers the interrelatedness of life in different elements of terrestrial ecosystems - mountains, wetlands, arid lands and forests and that the health of one part impacts the other.

EO can play multiple roles in achieving the target as it is a crucial part of the monitoring strategies for conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems. The availability of multi-decadal time series datasets of the (global) land surface from multiple satellite sensors means that there are fewer remote sensing data gaps and greater ability to monitor long term changes over greater areas. Multi-scale land-cover information can be retrieved over whole countries which, complemented with field data, can support integrated land use plans, including evaluation of the services provided by terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. Remote sensing data coupled with modelling tools can support the identification of priority areas for ecosystem services provision that needs specific management activities. It can also be used to monitor the effectiveness of restoration activities planned for these sites or to assess their status over time. Optical or radar sensors, or a combination of the two, can detect not just forest cover area, but also other attributes as wetlands, lakes and to estimate their biophysical parameters, as well as surface and volume measures.

Existing indicators primarily report on the extent to which areas are conserved (15.1.2) or sustainably used (15.1.1), therefore, there is a gap for an indicator on the restoration of these ecosystems. For example, indicator 15.1.1 only includes forest areas – drylands and mountains are considered under indicators 15.3.1, 15.4.1 and 15.4.2. Similarly, freshwater ecosystems are monitored using indicator 6.6.1 – so are not considered under target 15.1. EO has a lot of potential here as it can effectively monitor land cover change over time with high accuracy both at very high to high spatial resolution. The identification of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems which have been modified by humans paves the way for a tool that could identify areas for habitat restoration. Moreover, FAO is custodian of these SDGs and will work closely with other partners.