Trends.Earth (formerly the Land Degradation Monitoring Toolbox) is a tool for monitoring land change. Trends.Earth is a QGIS plugin that supports monitoring of land change, including changes in productivity, land cover, and soil organic carbon. The tool can support monitoring land degradation for reporting to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), as well as tracking progress towards achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 15.3, Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN).

Trends.Earth was produced as an output of the GEF-funded project “Enabling the use of global data sources to assess and monitor land degradation at multiple scales”. The project aims to provide guidance on robust methods and a tool for assessing, monitoring status, and estimating trends in land degradation using remote sensing technology.

The Land Degradation Monitoring Project is a collaboration of Conservation International, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Lund University.

See the user guide for information on how to use the plugin.

The easiest way to install the plugin is from within QGIS, using the QGIS plugin repository. However, It is also possible to install the plugin manually from a zipfile, which can be useful to access an old version of the plugin, or to install the plugin without internet. Instructions for both of these possibilities are below.

The easiest way to install the plugin is from within QGIS, using the QGIS plugin repository.

Download a stable version of Trends.Earth from the list of available releases on GitHub.

Now follow the instructions below on installing the plugin from a zipfile.

If you are interested in using the development version of the plugin, with the very latest (but not as well tested) features, or in contributing to the development of it, you will want to install the development version. There are two ways to install the development version:

• Using a packaged version (zipfile)

• Cloning the github repository and installing from that code

It is easier to install the plugin from a zipfile than from github, so this option is recommended unless you are interested in contributing to development of the plugin.

First download the latest Trends.Earth zipfile. There are two versions available, one for QGIS2, and the other a beta version for QGIS3. At the moment most development is occurring on the QGIS3 version, but the QGIS2 version will continue to be supported until March 2020.

• Download the latest Trends.Earth zipfile for QGIS2.18+.
• Download the latest Trends.Earth zipfile for QGIS3 (beta version).

Now follow the instructions below on installing the plugin from a zipfile.

Open a terminal window and clone the latest version of the repository from Github:

git clone https://github.com/ConservationInternational/trends.earth

Navigate to the root folder of the newly cloned repository, and install invoke, a tool that assists with installing the plugin:

pip install invoke

Now run the setup task with invoke to pull in the external dependencies needed for the project:

invoke plugin-setup

Once invoke plugin-setup has run, you can install the plugin using invoke:

invoke plugin-install

If you modify the code, you need to run invoke plugin-install to update the installed plugin in QGIS. You only need to rerun invoke plugin-setup if you change or update the plugin dependencies. After reinstalling the plugin you will need to restart QGIS or reload the plugin. Install the "Plugin reloader" plugin if you plan on making a log of changes (https://github.com/borysiasty/plugin_reloader).

While installing trends.earth directly from within QGIS is recommended, it might be necessary to install the plugin from a zipfile if you need to install it offline, or if you need the latest features.

To install from a zipfile, first download a zipfile of the stable or development version. The zipfile might be named LDMP.zip, LDMP_QGIS2.zip, or LDMP_QGIS3.zip depending on what version you are installing.

Next, extract the zipfile to the python plugins folder for your installation of QGIS. The location of this folder varies depending on your operating system and version of QGIS. For example, if you are using Windows and your username is "username", then this might be (for QGIS2) C:\Users\username\.qgis2\python\plugins. If you are using a Mac (and QGIS2) and your username is "username", then this might be /Users/username/.qgis2/python/plugins.

Once you are finished, you should (for QGIS2) have a folder named "LDMP" within your .qgis2/python/plugins folder.

Start QGIS, and click on "Plugins" then "Manage and install plugins". In the plugins window that appears, click on "Installed", and then make sure there is a check in the box next to "Land Degradation Monitoring Tool". The plugin is now installed and activated. Click "Close", and start using the plugin.

If you have questions related to the methods used by the plugin, how to use a particular dataset or function, etc., it is best to first check the user guide to see if your question is already addressed there. The frequently asked questions (FAQ) page is another good place to look.

If you don't find your answer in the above pages, you can also contact the discussion group.

If you think you have found a bug in Trends.Earth, report your issue to our issue tracker so the developers can look into it.

When you report an issue, be sure to provide enough information to allow us to be able to reproduce it. In particular, be sure to specify:

• What you were doing with the plugin when the problem or error ocurred (for example "I clicked on 'Download Results' and got an error messaging saying describe what the message said".
• The operating system you are using, version of the plugin are you using, and version of QGIS that you are using
• If you are emailing about an error or problem that occurred when downloading results, tell us your username, and the task start time that is listed in the download tool for the task you are referring to
• If the error occurred while processing data with the plugin, tell us the location you were analyzing with the tool (for example: "I selected Argentina from the dropdown menu"). If you used your own shapefile, please send us the file you used.
• If you got a message saying "An error has ocurred while executing Python code", send us either the text of the message, or a a screenshot of the error message. Also, send us the content of the Trends.Earth log messages panel. To access the Trends.Earth log messages panel, select "View", then "Panels", then "Log Messages" from within QGIS. Copy and paste the text from that panel and include it in your issue report. It will make it easiest for us to track things down (as their will be fewer log messages) if you do this after first starting a new QGIS session and immediately reproducing the error.

Trends.Earth is free and open-source. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2.0 or later.