Land Change Science

Spawned by global environmental change and sustainability concerns, land change science constitutes a science-based approach toward the understanding of land dynamics as a coupled human–environment system. It documents and monitors land-use and land-cover changes worldwide and seeks to understand the causes and consequences of these changes for humankind and the Earth system. Major advances in satellite detection provide global to local information on changes in a large range of land covers. This information is integrated with ground-based data to address the human and biophysical causes of land change, with special attention given to the causes of land change by the spatial scale of analysis employed and the type of land-cover change in question. The consequences of these changes on the function of ecosystems and the Earth system are identified and explained. The feedbacks on land uses and related facets of society are made primarily through changes in ecosystem services. The understanding gained is directed to such concerns as sustainable land systems, vulnerable peoples, and ecosystems, and other concerns that require integrated, coupled system analysis.