The Land Theme has been approved by the Partners

The impact of human activities around the globe is most readily seen in terrestrial environments - this is where people live and most human activity takes place. It is now recognised that this human activity has caused severe degradation of many terrestrial ecosystems, and that there have been consequential losses in productive capacity, in the availability of potable water supplies, and in biodiversity.

In order to manage the human impacts, to plan to avoid additional degradation and to design programmes to restore those ecosystems with historical degradation, there is a need for sound, up-to-date information about the state of the ecosystems and the processes that sustain them, the pressures that are affecting the ecosystems and responses to those pressures. This information needs to be readily available to key decision-makers in government and industry, so that future decisions about the management of terrestrial environments will be consistent with sustainable development principles.

Integrated Global Observations for Land (IGOL) is the terrestrial theme of IGOS. The theme proposal was approved at the meeting of IGOS-Partners 11 Meeting (27 May 2004, details available at: www.fao.org/gtos/igos/11.asp). The established theme team has the responsibility to design a cohesive programme of activities with will provide a comprehensive picture of the present state of terrestrial ecosystems, and build capacity for long-term monitoring of those ecosystems. IGOL will build on current assessments such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and existing monitoring programmes such as the Global Land Cover Network (GLCN) linked to relevant research programmes to provide access to best available science to support the monitoring activities and the interpretation of results, to help ensure that the information products that are developed are robust. These information products will be made available to a wide range of users at the national and international level.

The proposed main components of IGOL will be observations pertaining to: land cover and land use; fire and other major disturbances; human settlement and population; the extent and condition of ecosystems managed for agriculture, pastoralism and forestry; the extent and condition of natural ecosystems including those used for biodiversity conservation; soils and land degradation; biodiversity and ecosystem services; elevation and drainage. Data from a combination of sources, both ex situ and in situ, will be compiled and analysed to produce information products at national to global scales that are designed specifically to meet current and future society requirements.

Development of the theme

Since the approval of IGOL, the Theme Team with the support of the GTOS Secretariat have begun preparing the theme report. The first meeting of the Team together with relevant scientists was held in Rome 13-15 September 2004. Minutes of this meeting can be found at http://ioc.unesco.org/igospartners/land.htm. this will need to be done!!!. The next meeting of the Theme Team with be in Washington DC in July 2005.

The theme report is scheduled for finalisation in late 2005.

Theme Team

The membership of the Theme Team as at 30 April 2005 is:
Co-Chair: John Townshend, Chair GOFC-GOLD, GTOS
Co-Chair: John Latham, GTOS Programme Director
Dennis Ojima (IGBP)
Christiana Schmullius (GOFC/GOLD)
Olivier Arino (ESA)
Tony Janetos (Heinz Center)
Ashbindu Singh (UNEP)
Jay Feuquay (USGS)
Alan Belward (GCOS)
Jeff Tschirley (FAO)
Chris Justice (GOFC/GOLD)
Hirokazu Yamamoto (JAXA)
Roberta Balstad Miller (CIESEN)
Jiyuan Liu (CAS)
Secretariat: GTOS, FAO Sustainable Development Department

Further Information

Report - final - Nov 2003 - 33kb

Report - final - May 2004 - 93kb

Presentation - May 2004 - 95kb

Website - not available