Global land-use/land-cover change: towards an integrated study

TLDR

Human activities are reshaping the terrestrial environment at unprecedented rates, and land‑cover change from these activities is a major driver of global environmental change, yet global data are sparse and single‑factor explanations are inadequate, underscoring the need for a better understanding of the underlying forces. The study aims to systematically investigate how human drivers interact and under what circumstances each is important. The study proposes an international, interdisciplinary agenda that divides the world into common environmental, human‑driving, and land‑cover dynamic situations, each of which will be examined in detail. The study’s findings provide a foundation for developing a global land model capable of projecting land‑transformation patterns.

Abstract

Human actions are altering the terrestrial environment at unprecedented rates, magnitudes, and spatial scales. Landcover change stemming from human land uses represents a major source and a major element of global environmental change. Not only are the global-level data on landuse and land-cover change relatively poor, but we need a much better understanding of the underlying driving forces for these changes. Many forces have been proposed as significant, but single-factor explanations of land transformation have proved to be inadequate. How the human causes interact, and under what circumstances each is important, are questions needing systematic research. An international and interdisciplinary agenda is currently being developed to address these issues, through several closelyconnected foci of study. A division of the world according to common situations of environment, human driving forces, and land-cover dynamics will be followed by detailed study of the processes at work within each situation. The results will form the basis for a concurrent effort to develop a global land model that can offer projections of patterns of land transformation.