A Synthesis of Information on Rapid Land-cover Change for the Period 1981–2000

C hanges in land cover and in the way people use the land have become recognized over the last 15 years as important global environmental changes in their own right They are also intertwined in many ways with other environmental issues, such as climate change and carbon cycle, loss of biodiversity, sustainability of agriculture, and provision of safe drinking water. The international scientific community has created new interdisciplinary research programs to understand the multiple causes and consequences of land-cover and land-use change There has been a concomitant rapid expansion in the availability of data and information. However, there has not yet been a systematic examination, using global and regional observations, of the status and trends in terrestrial and coastal land-cover or related important ecosystem processes.