Land-Use and Land-Cover Change: science/research plan

Land-Use and Land-Cover Change is significant to a range of themes and issues central to the study of global change. The alterations it effects in the surface of the earth hold major implications for sustainable development and livelihood systems and also contributes to changes in the biogeochemical cycles of the earth, affecting the atmospheric greenhouse and other trace gases. This report presents the LUCC science/research plan as developed by the appointed Core Project Planning Committee (CPCC) and the Research Programmes Planning Committee (CPPC). Section one introduces the subject and its linkages with other global change research projects. Section two outlines the mandate from the IGBP. Section three describes the LUC problem and main themes and issues involved in its study. Section four provides an overview of the science/research plan, while sections five to seven detail the three main research foci and sections eight and nine depict the two integrating activities of the plan. -from Editors