Skip to main content icon/video/no-internet
icon backReturn to Entries

Land Use and Land Cover Mapping

Land cover refers to the observed physical layer of Earth's surface. It includes vegetation and anthropogenic features as well as bare rock, bare soil, and inland water surfaces. Reliable land cover mapping is of crucial importance for (a) understanding and mitigating climate change and its impacts, (b) sustainable development, (c) natural resource management, (d) biodiversity conservation, and (e) understanding of ecosystems and biogeochemical cycling. For example, land cover characteristics reveal ongoing processes of deforestation, desertification, urbanization, land degradation, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functions, and water and energy management. In situ and satellite-based land observation efforts as well as different disciplines (e.g., geography, ecology, geology, forestry, land policy, and planning) use and refer to land cover as one of the most obvious and detectable indicators of land surface characteristics and the associated human-induced or naturally occurring processes.

The process of Land use and Land Cover Mapping

The primary units for characterizing land cover are categories (e.g., forest or open water) or continuous variables classifiers (e.g., fraction of tree canopy cover). Secondary outputs of land cover characterization include the surface area of land cover types (in hectares), land cover change (area and change trajectories), and observation byproducts such as field survey data or processed satellite imagery. In applications using land cover maps, the original land cover categories are often associated with specific attributes (e.g., average carbon stocks, degree of artificiality, or function in the hydrological system). In current practice, many national and regional observation programs and research institutes still do not distinguish between land cover and land use. Land use characterizes the arrangements, activities, and inputs people have undertaken on a certain land cover type to produce, change, or maintain it. Observation strategies and methods vary for observing land cover, land use, and associated changes. Common and operational procedures exist for observation of land cover; observing land cover change, land use, and land use change is more challenging and still a subject of research.

Land cover and land use mapping activities can be understood as a process of information extraction governed by the rules of generalization. The degree of generalization, and thus the efficiency of representing reality in a two-dimensional form, is linked to three major factors: (1) the “thematic” component refers to the land classification system and the adopted land cover legend; (2) “cartographic” standards include the spatial reference system, the minimum mapping unit (MMU), and the mapping scale; and (3) the “interpretation” process reflects the characteristics of the source data, the interpretation procedures, and the skill of their use. These factors affect the map products—their content, quality, flexibility, and efficiency for specific applications.

Applications of Land use and Land Cover Mapping

Land cover and land use in different regions have been mapped and characterized at various times, and many countries have implemented some kind of land monitoring system (e.g., forest, agriculture, and cartographic information systems and inventories). In addition, there are many continental and global land cover map products and activities. There is, for example, a quasi-operational global land cover monitoring system, which integrates information from three common observational scales: (1) moderate-resolution satellite data (e.g., MODIS- or MERIS-type satellite sensor), (2) fine-resolution satellite data (from Landsat-and SPOT-type satellite sensors), and (3) in situ observations (or very high-resolution remote sensing data). Continuity of observations and consistency of land cover characterization is required for all these scales.

...

  • Loading...
locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

Read next

More like this

Sage Recommends

We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.

close

Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches

close
close
close Signed In to profile You are signed in as:
close
Logged in Institution Institution