Abstract:In 2015, the United Nations adopted the Transforming Our World:The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in which land degradation neutrality (LDN) is one of the important targets of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 15.3). However, due to varies indicative symptoms of land degradation in different climatic/geographical zones and land use types, the complexity of factors affecting land degradation or improvement, and the limits of spatial and temporal scope to define land degradation, for a long time, there was lack of common accepted methodology to identify land degradation, and short of key data set to establish reference baselines, and measure progress of SDG 15.3, which hinders the realization of SDG 15.3 by 2030. As a typical representative of a data-intensive scientific paradigm, Big Earth Data provides the possibility to solve this data gap. Focusing on two important aspects of SDG 15.3 reporting, namely baseline determination and progress monitoring, this article introduces the key challenges we faced, the potential of Big Earth Data and the practices we have taken. Finally, the prospects for harnessing Big Earth Data to facilitate SDG 15.3 in the future are outlined.