Land Change Science
Harvesting wheat in China (by Erle Ellis, 1994)
Land Change Science (also Land Systems Science, and earlier Land use and cover change; LUCC) aims to understand the changing interactions among human systems, ecosystems, the atmosphere and other Earth systems as mediated through human use of land.
Advances in Land Change Science are needed to better quantify, predict, mediate, and adapt to global climate change, biodiversity loss, and other global and local consequences of land use and land cover change.
A broad array of social and natural scientists are engaging in the cross-scale synthesis of multidisciplinary observations, models and theories on coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) that are required to advance Land Change Science.
A major obstacle is the tremendous challenge in global integration and synthesis of local and regional CHANS case studies.
GLOBE is part of the The Global Land Project (GLP), and a collaborator with CHANS.net, community leaders in Land Change Science.
The GLOBE project aims to accelerate the emergence of new global workflows in Land Change Science by offering an online collaboration environment combining quantitative real-time global relevance assessment, geovisualization, social-computational structures and machine learning algorithms.
Science Plan of The Global Land Project
Rindfuss, Ronald R., Stephen J. Walsh, B. L. Turner, II, Jefferson Fox, &Vinod Mishra. Developing a Science of Land Change: Challenges and Methodological Issues. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101(39):13976-81.
Turner II, Billie L., Eric F. Lambin, & Anette Reenberg. The Emergence of Land Change Science for Global Environmental Change and Sustainability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(52): 20666-71.