Geography

Land cover change detection

Document Type

Book Chapter

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the current trends in land cover change detection and to identify those trends that are potentially transformative to our understanding of land change, as well as identify knowledge/information gaps that should require attention in the future. The current level of understanding of the scale and pace of land cover change is inadequate (Frey and Smith 2007; Turner et al. 2007; Hansen et al. 2013). However, it is understood that land cover change is an undisputed component of global environmental change (Kennedy et al. 2014). Land cover changes and their impacts range widely from regional temperature warming to land degradation and biodiversity loss and from diminished food production to the spread of infectious diseases (Vitousek et al. 1997; Farrow and Winograd 2001). Land cover change, manifested as either land cover modification or conversion, can occur at all spatial scales, and changes at local scales can have cumulative impacts at broader scales (Stow 1995).

Publication Title

Land Resources Monitoring, Modeling, and Mapping with Remote Sensing

Publication Date

2015

First Page

579

Last Page

603

ISBN

9781482217988,9781482217957

DOI

10.1201/b19322

Keywords

biodiversity loss, cumulative impacts, current levels, food production, global environmental change, infectious disease, land degradation, land-cover change

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