FAO and Google are working together to make high-resolution satellite data an everyday tool in managing the world's natural resources in a joint effort that is changing the way the world goes about pursuing sustainable development.

The collaboration already allows resource managers and researchers in many countries to gauge changing land uses of individual field-sized plots seen by eye-in-the-sky satellites. The method offers a quantum leap towards improved abilities to assess a landscape's carbon storage capacity or plan a nation's approach to greenhouse gas emissions.

For example, easily accessible and rapidly-updated remote sensing data enable a shift in forest management from inventory reports to taking the almost real-time pulse of forests, thus opening a host of new policy prospects and further opening the doors of scientific perception.

Full Article: Google and FAO aim to usher in new era of environmental literacy