BEIJING, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- Chinese researchers have released an updated global land cover dataset for 2020 with a resolution of 30 meters, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The Global Ecosystem and Environment Observation Analysis Research Cooperation (GEOARC) mainly focuses on ecological and environmental monitoring at global and regional scales,offering information consultation to support GEO priorities, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Paris Agreement, and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. GEOARC has established a cooperation network to release annual reports share related datasets. China’s leading activity GEOARC has accomplished some really interesting progress and achievements in 2020, including three reports on Changes in Antarctic Ice Sheet, Grain Production Outlook, and the State of Food Security, Global Urban Land Composition and Expansion in 2000–2020, respectively.

A series of flight experiments were carried out in Erenhot from September 20 to October 7 to explore the underground water resources, according to the Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR).

The fourth report on the State of the World’s series released on September 29, 2020 by the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew, takes a deep dive into the state of the world’s plant and fungal kingdoms globally. The report is a result of huge international collaboration bringing together 210 scientists from 42 countries. Scientists from the National Engineering Research Center for Geomatics (NCG) with the Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR) took part in the work of medicine chapter. Focusing on the 157 most endangered medicinal plants, scientists analyzed the distribution patterns of these plants in China.

A portable image acquisition system for vegetation canopy has been developed by AIR to fill the data gap caused by canopy analyzer which fails to observe and measure features of vegetation simultaneously. The system is capable of obtaining extremely huge raw data from thirteen authenticity testing sites distributed nationwide while ensure the authenticity of vegetation products.

It is widely recognized that space technologies play a unique role in addressing disasters on world heritage sites. On October 13, 2020, a Training Workshop on Space Technologies for Post-Disaster Restoration of World Heritage Sites was held at the Jiuzhaigou Valley, a world heritage site in southwest China's Sichuan Province to mark the International Day on Disaster Risk Reduction.