Land cover and land-use change is a key interface between human and natural systems. Human activities related to land use influence the natural rate of exchange of greenhouse gases between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere, and is one of the major contributors to anthropogenic greenhouse gases. These changes in land use are not only caused by rural populations in their interactions with their local environment but increasingly by remote drivers such urban lifestyles and production drawing from resources of their global Hinterland. Our scientists are world leaders in the remote sensing of land-cover and modeling of land use change and urbanization and their environmental impacts.