The Rio+20 Summit: Earth observation for us and our planet

Hi My Fiends: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., The Rio+20 summit on promoting jobs, clean energy and a more sustainable use of our planet’s resources closed today after three days of talks. During the summit, the role of Earth observation in sustainable development was highlighted.

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 Southeast coast of Brazil – South America’s largest and most populous country – is visible in this image from ESA’s Envisat satellite. The city of Rio de Janeiro is visible as the beige area on the coastline on the right side of the image where the water appears to flow inland. Famous for its varied topography, Rio de Janeiro sits between the ocean and the Serra da Mantiqueira Mountains (seen in dark).
 Credits: ESA

In 1992, a blueprint to rethink economic growth, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Now, 20 years later, the Rio+20 Summit brought participants from governments, the private sector, non-govermental organisations and other stakeholders once again to Brazil to evaluate the progress being made.

During a side event organised by ESA, the significance of observing Earth from space came into focus, in particular how it improves the assessment and the monitoring of essential climate change, biodiversity and land degradation variables.

Earth-observing satellites allow for efficient, reliable and affordable monitoring of our planet from global to local scales. In many cases, it is the only way to obtain trend information on essential environmental variables.

The large volume of data acquired from over 30 years of satellite observations gives scientists a unique and detailed view of the changing physical characteristics of the Earth surface, sampled at a rate impossible to obtain with only in-situ observations.

The strong contributions that space observations can bring to environmental monitoring have now been recognised by the Rio Convention bodies: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

ESA began collaborations with these Rio Conventions 10 years ago. 

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Signs of land degradation can be seen around settlements in central Sudan in this satellite image. The round, brighter beige shapes indicate areas where vegetation has been largely or completely stripped due to intensive land use. As a consequence of this land use and soil erosion, agricultural fields had to be moved farther away from the villages. These fields are visible as white, yellow and brown spots towards the edges of the image. 

Credits: GLCF/DLR

For example, satellite data at national and local scales help the implementation of UNFCCC protocols and assist the Contracting Parties in their reporting duties.

The CBD develops national strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. Earth-observing satellites are seen as promising instruments for the systematic observations of essential biodiversity variables such as ecosystems status and trends.

The UNCCD is the centrepiece in the international community’s efforts to combat desertification and land degradation in drylands. The Convention is currently developing a monitoring and assessment process of the world’s drylands, where satellite observations will play a key role.

During the side event, representatives from all three Conventions reiterated that the collection of Earth observation data needs to be sustained.

ESA plans to continue to provide operational data delivery to these Conventions as well as for many other applications with the upcoming Sentinel family of satellites being developed under Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme.

At the conclusion of the summit, the Rio+20 Declaration stressed the need for the continuation of a regular review of the state of Earth’s changing environment, as well as access to reliable, relevant and timely data in areas related to sustainable development.

It also recognised the relevance of global mapping and recognise the efforts in developing global environmental observing systems.

Rio+20 saw additional side events on Earth observation organised by the Group on Earth Observations, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs.
ESA 

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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