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Ecosystems |
Terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems provide essential socio-economic and environmental benefits. Ecosystems the world over, however, are under tremendous stress from rapid land-use change, pollution and the overexploitation of natural resources.
Unfortunately, current Earth observation systems for monitoring forests, wetlands, deserts and other ecosystems suffer from numerous gaps and weaknesses. As a result, these systems cannot adequately support efforts to revive, protect or manage ecosystems.
The Group on Earth Observations aims to strengthen ecosystem monitoring through the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. GEOSS will establish an expanded and coordinated network of land, ocean and coastal monitoring systems that will produce information of the required breadth and depth.
In particular, GEOSS will improve spatial information on ecosystem conditions and trends. It will enable researchers to classify ecosystems and delineate their boundaries, including the geographic limits of protected areas. It will generate and integrate a wide variety of ecosystem data and create high-resolution maps so that decision makers can monitor ecosystem services such as flood control and sustainable timber harvests. GEOSS will also improve the monitoring and assessment of desertification and help to coordinate global, regional and national forest monitoring programs.
To learn more, view or download the collection of Information Sheets on GEOSS and the different societal benefit and cross-cutting areas.
The GEO Secretariat Expert responsible for Ecosystems is Douglas Muchoney.
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