LAND USE

Land use refers to the purposes for which humans exploit land and includes a series of activities carried out on a tract of land to produce commodities or benefits for consumption or sale (IGBP, 1995). Common land uses include agriculture, grazing, forestry, mineral extraction, and recreation and mainly reflects the internal context of land cover. However, nomenclature often does not distinguish the difference between land use and land cover concepts.

Land use encompasses a wide range of natural and socioeconomic aspects and their interrelations. Being a complex phenomenon, land use can be characterized by a number of external and internal characteristics. Land use is an extension of a human activity; the land's perceived purpose is cereals cropping, sheep grazing, forest harvesting, etc. Externally, land cover evidences the purpose of the land-use. For example, cropping will correspond to cropland, grazing to pasture, forest harvesting to forest, etc. More Details...

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