Land Use History of North America

Working together, resource managers and scientists are taking a dynamic view of ecosystems and ecological processes when looking at land cover changes. A variety of forces-from climatic change to fire and human land conversion-interact continually to determine the magnitude and direction of change. Encompassing the time of pre-European settlement to the present, the USGS Land Use History of North America (LUHNA) program seeks to understand the relationships between human land use and land cover change and works to assess future implications of these interactions. LUHNA studies begin to answer important questions such as "What types of land cover changes are occurring now, and how fast are they occurring?" "How do these changes compare with those in the past, and what does it all mean for future environmental quality and the habitability of the planet?" LUHNA products and research results, developed by scientists across North America, are available to Internet users through the National Biological Information Infrastructure.