Analysing land cover change

Collecting data on land use, analysing the forces driving changes in land use, and developing and testing models to derive long-term projections of land use and cover under various economic, policy and climate scenarios; also assessing possible response strategies to impacts of land cover change.

The term land cover denotes the natural or artificial objects on the Earth's surface. It is closely related to land use, which refers to why and how people work the land and how vegetation and soils are affected during this process. Land use/cover changes alter how the Earth's system functions by modifying biogeochemical cycles, radiation balance and ecological complexity. Changes in land use and land cover are among the issues central to the study of global environmental change. In addition to their cumulative long-term global dimensions, such changes can have profound regional environmental implications during the lifespan of current generations, such as the lowering of groundwater tables, problems of land and water contamination, reduced land productivity due to soil degradation and reduced biodiversity.

Most land cover change is now driven by human rather than natural causes. A systems analysis of this process requires an interdisciplinary framework emphasizing the linkages and the constraints between social, economic and political forces, on the one hand, and natural systems on the other. The framework must accommodate interactions at several spatial and temporal scales.

An IIASA project begun in 1995 models land use and land cover change in Europe and Northern Asia. The project is intended to advance scientific understanding of the processes of changes in global land use and land cover and their possible consequences. By analysing the spatial characteristics, temporal dynamics, and environmental consequences of changes in land use and land cover between 1900 and 1990, the project will define plausible future changes in land use and cover for the period 1990 to 2050 using different sets of assumptions for future demographic, political, economic, and social development.

1. Studying global change
2. Collecting ecological data
3. Assessing current land situation

1. Restoring plant cover
2. Protecting against vulnerability to long-term climate cycles
3. Managing land use
4. Developing land-use models

1. Maintaining databases on agricultural land use
2. Improving data systems on land resources

1. Unused land
2. Undeveloped recreation space
3. Uncoordinated use of community property
4. Excessive land usage
5. Degradation of cultivated land systems
6. Defective land use planning
7. Blighted land use

1. Unused
2. Underuse
3. Land
4. Cover-up
5. Changeableness
6. Change
7. Abuse

1. Global Land Cover Test Sites (GLCTS) Project
2. Land use change
3. Analyzing Land Cover Change—The Impact of the Motorway Construction and Their Operation on Landscape Structure
4. Assessment and Scenarios of Land Use Change in Europe
5. Land Use and Land Cover Change
6. Land Use Changes & Climate
7. The Effects of Land-Use Change
8. Human Causes of Land-Use Change
9. Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF)
10. Projected land-use change impacts on ecosystem services in the United States
11. Land use: Reducing emissions and preparing for climate change
12. Sourcebook for land use, land-use change and forestry projects
13. Deforestation and Land Use Change
14. How to deal with indirect land use change?