ABSTRACT
The resources that human beings depend upon for health and economic well-being are not distributed equally across the landscape. Varying characteristics of climate, geological formations, hydrology, terrain features, soils, and vegetation combine to provide different capacities to support human activities across space and time. Natural deposits of minerals offer potential for some areas to develop and market extractive resources; clement weather, suf‡cient moisture, and arable soils allow other areas to be farmed for food and ‡ber; still other areas with adequate moisture and temperature regimes, but steeper terrain or less arable soils, provide forests harvestable for a variety of wood products; extensive tracts of semiarid to arid grasses and shrubs offer open rangeland for grazing livestock; and navigable waterways and terrestrial corridors enable transportation and foster the growth of population centers. Land may have more than one potential use, based on the physical and anthropogenic conditions present. Human interactions with these different land capabilities have resulted in the patterns of land use and land cover (LULC) that we see today.
