The National Land Change Assessment (NLCA) is a research effort that examines the causes, trends, and implications of United States land change. The project takes a comprehensive approach towards understanding land change by systematically examining land conversion and management across a full range of land use and land cover types and climate and ecological settings. Land change is a key driver of environmental change and has important implications related to climate variability and change, biodiversity, natural resources, and ecosystem services.
Historical and recent land transformations are examined using an innovative multi-scale ecoregion framework . The approach employs a variety of spatial analysis approaches to provide an understanding of the geographically- and temporally-variable processes of land change, focusing on the interactions between humans and their environment. A goal of the project is to provide a scientific basis for land management and policy decisions related to issues of sustainability and resilience.
Research
Changes to the National Landscape
How are the long-term trends, land change transitions, and historical legacies of land use change affecting social-environmental systems and sustainability? This research examines the spatial-temporal dynamics and implications of US land change within the context of global environmental change.
Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
- Land-cover Change in the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative, 1973 to 2000
The results show that an estimated 17.7 percent of the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) land cover had a change during the 27-year period. Cyclic forest dynamics—of timber harvest and regrowth—are the most extensive types of land conversion. Agricultural land had an estimated net decline of 3.5 percent as cropland and pasture were urbanized and developed and converted to forest use. Urban and other developed land covers expanded from 2.0 percent of the LCC in 1973 to 3.1 percent in 2000.
Great Plains
- Land Change Variability and Human-Environment Dynamics in the United States Great Plains
- Ecoregional Differences in Late-20th-century Land-use and Land-cover Change in the U.S. Northern Great Plains
Eastern U.S.
- Assessing Landscape Change and Processes of Recurrence, Replacement, and Recovery in the Southeastern Coastal Plains, USA
Replacement processes, whereby a land use or cover is supplanted by a new land use, including urbanization and agricultural expansion, accounted for approximately 15 % of the extent of change. Recurrent processes that contribute to cyclical changes in land cover, including forest harvest/replanting and fire, accounted for 83 %. Most forest cover changes were recurrent, while the extents of recurrent silviculture and forest replacement processes such as urbanization far exceeded forest recovery processes. The total extent of landscape recovery, from prior land use to natural or semi-natural vegetation cover, accounted for less than 3 % of change.
- Land-use Pressure and a Transition to Forest-cover Loss in the Eastern United States
- Land Changes and their Driving Forces in the Southeastern United States
Intensive Land Systems
- Southern Coniferous Forest Belt
- Corn Belt
- Central California Valley
- Overview
The National Land Change Assessment (NLCA) is a research effort that examines the causes, trends, and implications of United States land change. The project takes a comprehensive approach towards understanding land change by systematically examining land conversion and management across a full range of land use and land cover types and climate and ecological settings. Land change is a key driver of environmental change and has important implications related to climate variability and change, biodiversity, natural resources, and ecosystem services.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.Historical and recent land transformations are examined using an innovative multi-scale ecoregion framework . The approach employs a variety of spatial analysis approaches to provide an understanding of the geographically- and temporally-variable processes of land change, focusing on the interactions between humans and their environment. A goal of the project is to provide a scientific basis for land management and policy decisions related to issues of sustainability and resilience.
Research
Changes to the National Landscape
How are the long-term trends, land change transitions, and historical legacies of land use change affecting social-environmental systems and sustainability? This research examines the spatial-temporal dynamics and implications of US land change within the context of global environmental change.
Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
- Land-cover Change in the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative, 1973 to 2000
The results show that an estimated 17.7 percent of the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) land cover had a change during the 27-year period. Cyclic forest dynamics—of timber harvest and regrowth—are the most extensive types of land conversion. Agricultural land had an estimated net decline of 3.5 percent as cropland and pasture were urbanized and developed and converted to forest use. Urban and other developed land covers expanded from 2.0 percent of the LCC in 1973 to 3.1 percent in 2000.
Great Plains
- Land Change Variability and Human-Environment Dynamics in the United States Great Plains
- Ecoregional Differences in Late-20th-century Land-use and Land-cover Change in the U.S. Northern Great Plains
Eastern U.S.
- Assessing Landscape Change and Processes of Recurrence, Replacement, and Recovery in the Southeastern Coastal Plains, USA
Replacement processes, whereby a land use or cover is supplanted by a new land use, including urbanization and agricultural expansion, accounted for approximately 15 % of the extent of change. Recurrent processes that contribute to cyclical changes in land cover, including forest harvest/replanting and fire, accounted for 83 %. Most forest cover changes were recurrent, while the extents of recurrent silviculture and forest replacement processes such as urbanization far exceeded forest recovery processes. The total extent of landscape recovery, from prior land use to natural or semi-natural vegetation cover, accounted for less than 3 % of change.
- Land-use Pressure and a Transition to Forest-cover Loss in the Eastern United States
- Land Changes and their Driving Forces in the Southeastern United States
Intensive Land Systems
- Southern Coniferous Forest Belt
- Corn Belt
- Central California Valley
- Land-cover Change in the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative, 1973 to 2000
- Publications