The Development of the International Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) Research Program and Its Links to NASA’s Land-Cover and Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Initiative

Abstract

The study of land-use and land-cover change has a long history dating to ancient times. (Glacken 1967) Early concern focused on how human activities transformed and degraded landscapes, a theme that has resurfaced at various times (Marsh 1864; Thomas 1956; Moran 2000) and currently is embedded within the larger concept of global environmental change and earth system science, especially that part addressing land-use and land-cover change (Meyer and Turner, 1994; Turner, Steffen et al., 2002). It is unquestionable that human populations have affected the structure and function of the earth system since their evolution as a distinct modern species (Thomas 1956; Redman 1999), but this impact increased in pace, magnitude, and kind with the advent of the industrial revolution (Turner et al., 1990; Meyer 1996; Steffen et al., 2003).