The assessment of land use and land cover is an important activity for cont- porary land management. Human land-use practices are the most significant factors influencing environmental management at local, regional, national, and global scales. In the past, environmental policies have often reflected a reactive response to environmental perturbations with management efforts focused on short-term, local-scale problems such as pollutant abatement. Currently, environmental management philosophy is evolving toward examination of critical environmental problems over larger spatial scales and...

The assessment of land use and land cover is an important activity for cont- porary land management. Human land-use practices are the most significant factors influencing environmental management at local, regional, national, and global scales. In the past, environmental policies have often reflected a reactive response to environmental perturbations with management efforts focused on short-term, local-scale problems such as pollutant abatement. Currently, environmental management philosophy is evolving toward examination of critical environmental problems over larger spatial scales and...