Land use, land cover, or land use/land cover (LU/LC) is a description of what happens on a parcel of land. It concerns the benefits derived from using the land, and also the land management actions that humans carry out there. The following categories are used for land use: forest land, cropland (agricultural land), grassland, wetlands, settlements and other lands. The way humans use land, and how land use is changing, has many impacts on the environment. Effects of land use choices and changes by humans include, for example, urban sprawl, soil erosion, soil degradation, land degradation and desertification.UN Land Degradation and Land Use/Cover Data Sources ret. 26 June 2007 Land use and land management practices have a major impact on natural resources including water, soil, nutrients, plants and animals.
Land use change is "the change from one land-use category to another". Land-use change, together with use of fossil fuels, are the major anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide, a dominant greenhouse gas. Human activity is the most significant cause of land cover change, and humans are also directly impacted by the environmental consequences of these changes. For example, deforestation (the systematic and permanent conversion of previously forested land for other uses) has historically been a primary facilitator of land use and land cover change.
The study of land change relies on the synthesis of a wide range of data and a diverse range of data collection methods. These include land cover monitoring and assessments, modeling risk and vulnerability, and land change modeling.
Definition and categories
The IPCC defines the term land use as the "total of arrangements, activities and inputs applied to a parcel of land".IPCC, 2022: Annex II: Glossary [Möller, V., R. van Diemen, J.B.R. Matthews, C. Méndez, S. Semenov, J.S. Fuglestvedt, A. Reisinger (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, pp. 2897–2930, doi:10.1017/9781009325844.029. The same report groups land use into the following categories: forest land, cropland (agricultural land), grassland, wetlands, settlements and other lands.
Another definition is that of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization: "Land use concerns the products and/or benefits obtained from use of the land as well as the land management actions (activities) carried out by humans to produce those products and benefits."FAO Land and Water Division retrieved 14 September 2010
As of the early 1990s, about 13% of the Earth was considered arable land, with 26% in pasture, 32% forests and woodland, and 1.5% urban areas.
As of 2015, the total arable land is 10.7% of the land surface, with 1.3% being permanent cropland.
For example, the US Department of Agriculture has identified six major types of land use in the United States. Acreage statistics for each type of land use in the contiguous 48 states in 2017 were as follows: +US land use (2017)Useacreage (M)km2 (M)% of totalPasture/range6542.64735Forest538.62.1828Cropland391.51.58421Special use168.80.6839Miscellaneous68.90.2794Urban69.40.2814Total1,8917.653100 Special use areas in the table above include national parks (29 M acres) and state parks (15 M), wildlife areas (64.4 M), highways (21 M), railroads (3M), military bases (25 M), airports (3M) and a few others. Miscellaneous includes cemeteries, golf courses, marshes, deserts, and other areas of "low economic value". The total land area of the United States is 9.1 M km2 but the total used here refers only to the contiguous 48 states, without Alaska etc.
Land use change
Land use change is "the change from one land-use category to another". Land-use change, together with use of fossil fuels, are the major anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide, a dominant greenhouse gas.
Human activity is the most significant cause of land cover change, and humans are also directly impacted by the environmental consequences of these changes. Collective land use and land cover changes have fundamentally altered the functioning of key Earth systems. For instance, human changes to land use and land cover have a profound impact on climate at a local and regional level, which in turn contributes to climate change.
Land use by humans has a long history, first emerging more than 10,000 years ago. Human changes to land surfaces have been documented for centuries as having significant impacts on both earth systems and human well-being. Deforestation is an example of large-scale land use change. The deforestation of temperate regions since 1750 has had a major effect on land cover. The reshaping of landscapes to serve human needs, such as the deforestation for farmland, can have long-term effects on earth systems and exacerbate the causes of climate change.
Land is the foundation of agriculture, supporting over 95% of food production while providing essential ecosystem services that sustain life on Earth. As a finite resource, it faces pressures from competing demands including urban expansion, biofuel production, and changing consumption patterns driven by rising incomes and shifting diets. Land is the basis of food security, biodiversity conservation, climate regulation and in 2025 the livelihoods of 892 million agricultural workers worldwide.
The expansion of agriculture has fundamentally transformed land-use patterns across the planet over the centuries. In the twenty-first century, between 2001 and 2023, global agricultural area decreased by 78 million hectares (Mha) (−2%), with cropland area increasing by 78 Mha and permanent meadows and pastures decreasing by 151 Mha. These changes exhibit significant regional variations. Sub-Saharan Africa witnessed cropland expansion of 69 Mha accompanied by 72 Mha of forest loss, while Latin America saw 25 Mha of cropland growth alongside 85 Mha of net forest area loss. Agricultural expansion remains the primary driver of global deforestation, accounting for nearly 90% of forest loss. In this century, another important aspect to consider is that approximately 3.6 Mha of croplands are abandoned annually, with land degradation likely playing a significant role in these losses.
Although the burning of fossil fuels is the primary driver of present-day climate change, prior to the Industrial Revolution, deforestation and irrigation were the largest sources of human-driven greenhouse gas emissions. Even today, 35% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide contributions can be attributed to land use or land cover changes. Currently, almost 50% of Earth's non-ice land surface has been transformed by human activities, with approximately 40% of that land used for agriculture, surpassing natural systems as the principal source of nitrogen emissions.
Increasing land conversion by humans in future is not inevitable: In a discussion on response options to climate change mitigation and adaptation an IPCC special report stated that "a number of response options such as increased food productivity, dietary choices and food losses, and waste reduction, can reduce demand for land conversion, thereby potentially freeing land and creating opportunities for enhanced implementation of other response options".IPCC, 2019: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems [P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, E. Calvo Buendia, V. Masson-Delmotte, H.- O. Pörtner, D. C. Roberts, P. Zhai, R. Slade, S. Connors, R. van Diemen, M. Ferrat, E. Haughey, S. Luz, S. Neogi, M. Pathak, J. Petzold, J. Portugal Pereira, P. Vyas, E. Huntley, K. Kissick, M. Belkacemi, J. Malley, (eds.)]. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157988.001
Analytical methods Land change science relies heavily on the synthesis of a wide range of data and a diverse range of data collection methods, some of which are detailed below.
Land cover monitoring and assessments A primary function of land change science is to document and model long-term patterns of landscape change, which may result from both human activity and natural processes. In the course of monitoring and assessing land cover and land use changes, scientists look at several factors, including where land-cover and land-use are changing, the extent and timescale of changes, and how changes vary through time. To this end, scientists use a variety of tools, including satellite imagery and other sources of remotely sensed data (e.g., aircraft imagery), field observations, historical accounts, and reconstruction modeling. These tools, particularly satellite imagery, allow land change scientists to accurately monitor land-change rates and create a consistent, long-term record to quantify change variability over time. Through observing patterns in land cover changes, scientists can determine the consequences of these changes, predict the impact of future changes, and use this information to inform strategic land management.
Modeling risk and vulnerability Modeling risk and vulnerability is also one of land change science's practical applications. Accurate predictions of how human activity will influence land cover change over time, as well as the impact that such changes have on the sustainability of ecological and human systems, can inform the creation of policy designed to address these changes.
Studying risk and vulnerability entails the development of quantitative, qualitative, and geospatial models, methods, and support tools. The purpose of these tools is to communicate the vulnerability of both human communities and natural ecosystems to hazard events or long-term land change. Modeling risk and vulnerability requires analyses of community sensitivity to hazards, an understanding of geographic distributions of people and infrastructure, and accurate calculation of the probability of specific disturbances occurring.
Land change modeling A key method for studying risk and vulnerability is land change modeling (LCM), which can be used to simulate changes and land use and land cover. LCMs can be used to predict how land use and land cover may change under alternate circumstances, which is useful for risk assessment, in that it allows for the prediction of potential impacts and can be used to inform policy decisions, albeit with some uncertainty.
Examples of land use change
Deforestation
Deforestation is the systematic and permanent conversion of previously forested land for other uses. It has historically been a primary facilitator of land use and land cover change. Forests are a vital part of the global ecosystem and are essential to carbon capture, ecological processes, and biodiversity. However, since the invention of agriculture, global forest cover has diminished by 35%.