Kensington Campus, School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences
SydneyNSW2052
Australia
Graciela Metternicht is a Professor of Environmental Geography in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales Australia. She is Deputy Chair of the Australian Academy of Sciences National Committee of Geographical Sciences; co-chair of the Dryland Ecosystems Specialist Group of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management; member of the Science Policy Interface of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and the Assessment Methodology Group of the 6th Global Environment Outlook. Her research interest is primarily in the fields of environmental geography, with a focus on geospatial technologies and their application in environmental management (mapping and monitoring, sustainable land management, land degradation, indicators, ecosystem services) and sustainability. Prior to joining UNSW, Professor Metternicht was Regional Coordinator of Early Warning and Assessment of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Previous academic appointments include Head of Discipline and Professor of Geospatial Systems and Environmental Management at the School of Natural and Built Environments of the University of South Australia and Professor of Spatial Sciences at the Western Australian School of Mines, Curtin University of Technology. More at: https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/professor-graciela-isabel-metternicht and linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/graciela-metternicht-30a3496a/
Themes
Telecoupling of land use systems, Land management systems, Land use and conflict
This recent article in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability (COSUST) was written by members of the GLP community for an upcoming GLP Special Issue in COSUST. The paper argues that normative positions are increasingly required of sustainability science and lays out principles that served to guide the themes and organization of the 4th GLP Open Science Meeting.
It’s very timely that the Earth observation community reports on applied remote sensing or geospatial research that can assist countries setting the SDG targets, as well as tracking progress towards their implementation. Thus we propose a special edition on EO and the SDG in the Remote Sensing of Environment Journal, a team work boosted and led by a member of the GLP Scientific Steering Committee, Professor Graciela Metternicht (University of New South Wales, Australia).
The papers of this special issue of Environmental Science & Policy aim to support national sustainable development aspirations by providing guidance of needed policies, procedures and governance to regulate national land use by avoiding further net loss of productive lands.
A new publication, The Global Land Outlook (GLO), draws on an analysis of recent trends in land productivity and modelling of land demand scenarios up to the year 2050. It outlines how reversing trends in the condition of land resources could accelerate efforts to achieve many of the Sustainable Development Goals, by adopting more efficient planning and sustainable practices.
