NASA’s Applied Remote Sensing Training Program (ARSET) has opened a new open, online webinar series: Large Scale Applications of Machine Learning using Remote Sensing for Building Agriculture Solutions. Remote sensing data is becoming crucial to solve some of the most important environmental problems, especially pertaining to agricultural applications and food security. Participants will become familiar with data format and quality considerations, tools, and techniques to process remote sensing imagery at large scale from publicly available satellite sources, using cloud tools such as AWS S3, Databricks, and Parquet. Additionally, participants will learn how to analyze and train machine learning models for classification using this large source of data to solve environmental problems with a focus on agriculture. 

NASA’s Applied Remote Sensing Training Program (ARSET) has opened a new online introductory webinar series: Fundamentals of Machine Learning for Earth Science. This three-part training, presented in English and Spanish, is open to the public and will provide attendees an overview of machine learning in regards to Earth Science, and how to apply these algorithms and techniques to remote sensing data in a meaningful way. Attendees will also be provided with end-to-end case study examples for generating a simple random forest model for land cover classification from optical remote sensing. We will also present additional case studies to apply the presented workflows using additional NASA data.

Cities around the world face numerous environmental hazards, such as extreme heat events, landslides, pollution, and flooding. Cities must monitor and address these hazards to reduce risks to, and enhance resilience of, their residents to climate change impacts.

Satellite Observations and Tools for Fire Risk, Detection, and Analysis

The World Urban Forum (WUF) was established in 2001 by the United Nations to address one of the most pressing issues facing the world today: rapid urbanization and its impact on communities, cities, economies, climate change and policies. Convened by UN-Habitat, the Forum is a high level, open and inclusive platform for addressing the challenges of sustainable urbanization.

This interdisciplinary program provides an overview of pressing issues related to agricultural investments, as well as an introduction to relevant practical skills.

CFS 46 is from 14 – 18 October 2019 at FAO, Rome, Italy and will be the first major global meeting on food security and nutrition after the High Level Political Forum SDG Summit in New York in September 2019. The SDGs will be the theme of the week with a particular focus on ways to accelerate SDG 2 – zero hunger.

In 2019 the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) will focus the world’s attention on the fundamental importance of rights to address the current environmental crisis. Linking people to landscapes, the GLF will explore the essential contributions of indigenous peoples, local communities, and rural and indigenous women and youth in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement targets on climate change, highlighting the transformative role of rights and rights-based approaches in securing a more just, sustainable and prosperous future for all. Woven across the year’s events, these priorities will form the centerpiece of the annual conference in Bonn, Germany – to be held on June 22–23 alongside the intersessional climate talks – making it the world’s single largest forum on rights and sustainable landscapes.

Availability of accurate and up to date data and information on land rights, tenures and administration as well as on different land use, such as agriculture, forestry, mining, wildlife, water, housing and infrastructure, is critical to effective land governance and crucial for planning and managing the use of land and land-based resources.

Large-scale acquisition of land in the global South has received a great deal of interest in the last few years. Especially following the food crisis, and stimulated by the growing demand for biofuels, pressure on land continues to increase.

LAND GOVERNANCE IN TRANSITION: 

How to support transformations that work for people and nature?

World Cities Day aims to promote the international community’s interest in global urbanization, enhance cooperation among countries and cities in meeting opportunities and addressing challenges of urbanization, and contribute to sustainable urban development. The overall World Cities Day theme is Better City, Better Life and this year’s particular theme is Building Sustainable and Resilient Cities. The main event will be celebrated in Liverpool, UK.