Assessing human and environmental pressures of global land-use change 2000–2010

Abstract

Global land is turning into an increasingly scarce resource. We here present a comprehensive assessment of co-occuring land-use change from 2000 until 2010, compiling existing spatially explicit data sources for different land uses, and building on a rich literature addressing specific land-use changes in all world regions. This review systematically categorizes patterns of land use, including regional urbanization and agricultural expansion but also globally telecoupled land-use change for all world regions. Managing land-use change patterns across the globe requires global governance.

Keywords

• agriculture
• earth systems (land, water and atmospheric)
• land use
• natural resources (biological and non-biological)
• urban systems