ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the nature and functioning of land systems in the context of a multi-scale representation of land as a coupled human-environment system. It describes several ways in which land and land systems link to resource accounting and to the operation of the multi-scale integrated assessment. There are numerous examples of land capability and suitability assessments of land for different uses, and there are well-developed methodologies for land evaluation. These types of multi-dimensional assessments and evaluations of land, and its potential, are of great value in MuSIASEM, particularly in relation to use of MuSIASEM in simulation mode, where one or more potential alternative land uses are being assessed as part of the analysis. MuSIASEM explicitly presents interconnections between land, population, economy, food, water and energy simultaneously at multiple scales, reporting and analysing the multi-scale use of land systems to society, treating land as a fund element.
