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imagine what the East Coast of the

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United States looked like before the

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cities were built before the sprawl of

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the suburbs and before farmland dotted

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the countryside old-growth forests made

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up much of the landscape along the east

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coast as people began developing the

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land they cleared the forests for

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fertile planting soil and pasture this

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alteration of the landscape is called

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land-use change and it's still happening

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all over the globe University of

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Maryland professor Chris Justus spends

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his time studying land-use change

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through a nasa-funded satellite remote

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sensing project called the land cover

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land-use change program as we as we're

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looking from space over time we're able

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to see these changes and some of them

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are very abrupt and quite astounding

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Chris and his team monitor the Earth's

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surface to get an idea of where his land

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cover is changing and what the land is

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being used for what we see from space is

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the surface of the earth and land cover

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could be Forest or grassland woodland

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urban areas whereas land use is what

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people are doing with that surface the

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land cover land-use change projects

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specifically looks at agricultural land

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use change understanding where people

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are altering the land surface for

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growing food allows governments and NGOs

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to see which land is being converted

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from one type of use to another not only

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do we have an expansion of Agriculture

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in some parts of the world but in others

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we have an abandon of Agriculture and

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this in turn has implications in terms

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of both carbon sequestration but it also

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has impacts in terms of fire

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distribution whereas agricultural

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practices would clear and manage the

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fuel on active farmland on abandoned

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land that fuel is much less managed

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leading to some of the disastrous fires

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we have seen in recent years all over

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urban development is not the only cause

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for land-use change the Brazilian

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rainforest is being cleared at an

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alarming rate as subsistence farmers

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convert the land for pasture and crops

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like sugarcane and soy subsistence

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farmers are coming in that after a few

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years due to infertile soils

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those lands will be abandoned new areas

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will be cut down for agriculture and

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those those lands can either revert to

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forests or they can be used for pasture

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clearing the tropical rainforest has

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many negative effects on biodiversity

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just as other land-use practices like

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the application of harmful pesticides

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and fertilizers can have similar side

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effects from the US we've seen

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increasing dead zone at the mouth of the

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Mississippi where you have conditions

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where fish can't live due to the excess

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fertilizer that is being put in upstream

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from agricultural production the

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physical dimensions of land-use change

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are only part of the story understanding

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the cultural economic and social facets

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of land-use change is important because

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all of these aspects are interconnected

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it takes social scientists and physical

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scientists working together in an

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integrated way to really understand the

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not just the the causes of of land-use

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change but the impacts and consequences

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our language

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as we face climate change in global

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population growth NASA data continue to

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provide scientists with the tools they

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need to monitor the world's agricultural

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regions when the the information that we

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provide by the satellite is used to make

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management decisions that actually