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National land-cover pattern data

Informally Refereed

Abstract

Land cover and its spatial patterns are key ingredients in ecological studies that consider large regions and the impacts of human activities. Because humanity is a principal driver of land-cover change over large regions (Turner et al. 1990), land-cover data provide direct measures of human activity, and both direct and indirect measures of ecological conditions within human-dominated landscapes (O'Neill et al. 1997). Thus, incorporating land-cover information is a way to place humans directly into regional ecological models and assessments.

Citation

Riitters, Kurt H.; Wickham, James D.; Vogelmann, James E.; Jones, K. Bruce. 2000. National land-cover pattern data. Ecology 81: 604
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/2063