Land use / land cover (LUCC) - knowledge summary

1. Basic Concepts

Land use: is a land of natural ecosystems to become an artificial ecosystem process that is natural, the process of economic and social factors combined effects of which mode of social production often play a role in land use decisions, it is human to land use patterns and utilization of natural properties, including human land use purpose and intent, is a human activity. Therefore, agricultural land, commercial land, traffic land, residential land are all land-use concept.

Land cover: refers to a surface formed of or coated natural human conditions caused by, but not limited to the surface of vegetation, further comprising an artificial covering various engineered on the surface thereof, so that the natural vegetation of the body to create a natural and artificial to create a comprehensive reflection of various elements of the earth's surface covered, it can be said that a comprehensive land cover refers to earth surface vegetation cover and artificial covering. It emphasizes the result of human activity and nature of the land. Forests, grasslands, rivers, soils, glaciers and other land belonging to different types of cover.

2. differences and relations

	Land Use	Land Cover
Attributes	Focusing on socio-economic attributes land	It focuses on the nature of the land
Feature	Often characterized by functional performance	Mainly characterized by the form of
contact	1. Land use is the driving force of the external land cover change, land cover will in turn affect the way land use, both of which constitute a unified whole in the ground. 2. Land cover is the manifestation of the land use of a land use and land cover types includes several forms, will inevitably bring about changes in land use and land cover change process, but it may not produce land cover change land-use changes. 3. The impact of land use change land cover change in two forms: the gradient and change.

3. LUCC (land use / land cover change)

Land use (land use) / land cover change (land cover change), referred to LUCC, it is one of the main core and the study of global change. The main method of LUCC research are: mathematical statistics, remote sensing technology, geographic information system methods, models and other methods, and methods of landscape ecology. Remote sensing means which is recognized as the most advanced means of land-use access to information, it has a real-time, objective, wide coverage and other advantages.