Population-Environment Interactions with an Emphasis on Land-Use/Land-Cover Dynamics and the Role of Technology

Abstract

Technology has played a fundamental role in mapping, monitoring, and modeling land-use/land-cover (LULC) dynamics across a range of spatial and temporal scales and local, regional, and global extents. Spatial technologies, including remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS), data visualizations, spatial and statistical analyses, and models have combined to position people, place, and the environment within a spatially and temporally explicit context. These technologies help characterize the rate, pattern, and composition of LULC dynamics so that associated drivers of land-use change can be related to socioeconomic, demographic, geographic, and environmental dynamics. Special challenges exist because of inherent differences in how people and the environment are characterized in both space and time. Theories and practices from the social, natural, and spatial sciences are integrated to study LULC dynamics within the context of human-environment interactions. The goal has been to characterize the composition and spatial organization of LULC through its structure, function, and change and to relate the drivers of change to observed or simulated LULC patterns at different scales of analysis. Here we emphasize the use of technology for characterizing LULC dynamics, collecting and linking data from households, communities, regions, and nations with spatially explicit data collected, managed, and integrated within a Geographic Information Science (GISc) perspective. We discuss how technology aids in (1) mapping, monitoring, and modeling LULC dynamics by considering remote-sensing systems for LULC mapping, (2) image change-detection approaches for monitoring land-cover dynamics, (3) socioeconomic and demographic surveys linked to place through GPS technology and other approaches for characterizing the human dimension, (4) GIS for deriving and integrating disparate data, and (5) land-cover models for creating multilevel and spatial simulation of LULC dynamics. We describe how technology is being used to consider human behavior and agency in conjunction with a wide variety of processes associated with land-use/land-cover change.