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Cited by 1,946Land Use and Ecosystem ServicesRemote Sensing in AgricultureConservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management

Global land change from 1982 to 2016

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Song, Xiao-Peng, Hansen, Matthew C., Stehman, Stephen V., Potapov, Peter V., Tyukavina, Alexandra, Vermote, Eric F., Townshend, John R.·2018·Nature
DOI 10.1038/s41586-018-0411-9PMC PMC6366331
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Abstract

Land change is a cause and consequence of global environmental change 1,2. Changes in land use and land cover considerably alter the Earth's energy balance and biogeochemical cycles, which contributes to climate change and-in turn-affects land surface properties and the provision of ecosystem services 1-4. However, quantification of global land change is lacking. Here we analyse 35 years' worth of satellite data and provide a comprehensive record of global land-change dynamics during the period 1982-2016. We show that-contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally 5-tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km 2 (+7.1% relative to the 1982 level). This overall net gain is the result of a net loss in the tropics being outweighed by a net gain in the extratropics. Global bare ground cover has decreased by 1.16 million km 2 (-3.1%), most notably in agricultural regions in Asia. Of all land changes, 60% are associated with direct human activities and 40% with indirect drivers such as climate change. Land-use change exhibits regional dominance, including tropical deforestation and agricultural expansion, temperate reforestation or afforestation, cropland intensification and urbanization. Consistently across all climate domains, montane systems have gained tree cover and many arid and semi-arid ecosystems have lost vegetation cover. The mapped land changes and the driver attributions reflect a human-dominated Earth system. The dataset we developed may be used to improve the modelling of land-use changes, biogeochemical cycles and vegetation-climate interactions to advance our understanding of global environmental change 1-4,6.

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  • Although the rate of forest loss has slowed globally since the 1980s, it is still rapid in many tropical regions.

    “Although the rate of forest loss has slowed globally since the 1980s, it is still rapid in many tropical regions ( 27 )”

    From Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative change (2019) · cites this paper as [27]

    The Abstract reports substantial tree-cover loss in South America and deforestation hotspots in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, supporting continued loss in tropical regions. It reports a global net gain in tree canopy over 1982–2016, but does not show that the global rate of forest loss slowed since the 1980s; net change and a slowing loss rate are different measures. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Authors
Song, X.-P., Hansen, M. C., Stehman, S. V., Potapov, P. V., Tyukavina, A., Vermote, E. F., & Townshend, J. R.
Affiliations
  • University of Maryland, College Park (US)
  • SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (US)
  • Goddard Space Flight Center (US)
Corresponding author
Song, Xiao-Peng
ORCID
Venue
Nature
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2018-08
Volume
560
Issue
7720
Pages
639-643
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
DOI
10.1038/s41586-018-0411-9
PMC
PMC6366331
OpenAlex
W2885696803
Cited by
1,946
References
7
Citations by year
2026: 206 · 2025: 257 · 2024: 262 · 2023: 269 · 2022: 311 · 2021: 299 · 2020: 203 · 2019: 121 · 2018: 16 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 1
FWCI
90.01
Type
journal article
Language
en
Update notices
correction (2018-10-01)
Open access
Licence
www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • FSC® Open Knowledge Repository (FSCOKR)
  • Nature
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Remote Sensing in Agriculture
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
Keywords
land use and land cover change, tree cover change, forest cover change, bare ground, reforestation, afforestation, tropical deforestation, agricultural expansion, cropland intensification, urbanization, climate change drivers, vegetation-climate interactions, mountain vegetation, arid and semi-arid ecosystems, satellite remote sensing
MeSH terms
Agriculture, Environmental Monitoring, Human Activities, Trees, Forestry, Ecosystem, Earth, Planet, Climate Change, Satellite Imagery

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