TY - JOUR
T1 - Developing a science of land change
T2 - Challenges and methodological issues
AU - Rindfuss, Ronald R.
AU - Walsh, Stephen J.
AU - Turner, B. L.
AU - Fox, Jefferson
AU - Mishra, Vinod
PY - 2004/9/28
Y1 - 2004/9/28
N2 - Land-change science has emerged as a foundational element of global environment change and sustainability science. It seeks to understand the human and environment dynamics that give rise to changed land uses and covers, not only in terms of their type and magnitude but their location as well. This focus requires the integration of social, natural, and geographical information sciences. Each of these broad research communities has developed different ways to enter the land-change problem, each with different means of treating the locational specificity of the critical variables, such as linking the land manager to the parcel being managed. The resulting integration encounters various data, methodological, and analytical problems, especially those concerning aggregation and inference, land-use pixel links, data and measurement, and remote sensing analysis. Here, these integration problems, which hinder comprehensive understanding and theory development, are addressed. Their recognition and resolution are required for the sustained development of land-change science.
AB - Land-change science has emerged as a foundational element of global environment change and sustainability science. It seeks to understand the human and environment dynamics that give rise to changed land uses and covers, not only in terms of their type and magnitude but their location as well. This focus requires the integration of social, natural, and geographical information sciences. Each of these broad research communities has developed different ways to enter the land-change problem, each with different means of treating the locational specificity of the critical variables, such as linking the land manager to the parcel being managed. The resulting integration encounters various data, methodological, and analytical problems, especially those concerning aggregation and inference, land-use pixel links, data and measurement, and remote sensing analysis. Here, these integration problems, which hinder comprehensive understanding and theory development, are addressed. Their recognition and resolution are required for the sustained development of land-change science.
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.0401545101
DO - 10.1073/pnas.0401545101
M3 - Review article
C2 - 15383671
AN - SCOPUS:4644248171
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 101
SP - 13976
EP - 13981
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 39
ER -