Links and broken chains: evidence of human-caused changes in land cover in remotely sensed images

摘要: Abstract Land use intensification on shrinking forage resources characterizes many livestock producing communities. Remotely sensed images can show land cover change, but how household decision making is reflected in had not been synthesized. For eight areas the US, Africa, and Mongolia (>340,000 km 2 ), we ranked constraints making, quantified vegetation greenness trends from 1981 to 2004 change using 1990 2000 Landsat images. Constraints varied across sites, ecological settings highest. Five sites showed increasing (2.4–8.0% increase per decade; P  ≤ 0.01); African no or declining (−2.5%;  = 0.048). US was modest, with most suitable for cultivation already converted by 1990. Cover minor Mongolia, despite profound changes government economy. The Kenyan site largest cover. We hypothesize a humped relationship, where households undeveloped regions lack convert Developed have reached some stasis use. Developing high human population growth residents access machinery greatest change.