Semantic issues in Land Use and Land Cover Studies – Foundations, Application and Future Directions

After decades of accomplishments and faced with new technological and scientific insights, the field of land use and land cover (LULC) is seemingly at a crossroads for effective and open uses of data. The use of categorical LULC data in computer-based land analysis poses a significant challenge because it usually leads to a binary treatment of the information in subsequent analysis. Still, LULC data offers a rich and generic resource and it is often used for purposes other than just finding out what the land cover is at a location; examples include climate modeling, monitoring of biodiversity, and simulation of urban expansion. As a result, the objectives for LULC semantics have moved from those of increasingly accurate technological representations of spatially explicit change to the representation of integrated roles LULC play within a broader environmental context. Many of these uses call for deeper understanding of the categories in order for the data to be re-purposed. As more and more land cover data sets have been developed there is also an increased recognition that variation in nomenclature and class definitions poses significant hurdles to effective and synergistic use of LULC resources.