ABSTRACT
UN-REDD United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation
USDS-FS United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service
USGS United States Geological Survey USGS-LCCP United States Geological Survey Land
Cover Characterization Program VCT Vegetation change tracker W Wetness band derived from the Tasseled
Cap transformation WELD Web-Enabled Landsat Data Wr Rescaled wetness band
Ÿe 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. Ÿe 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 modi¤cation or conversion, can occur at all spatial scales, and changes at local scales can have cumulative impacts at broader scales (Stow 1995).
