NEWS NOTES ON SUSTAINABLE WATER RESOURCESLand Use and Land CoverLand use has many direct and indirect impacts on water resources. Because this is not considered in many cases, some background on it is offered here.“Landuse and landcover change (LULCC)Íž also known as land change) is a general term for the human modification of Earth's terrestrial surface. Though humans have been modifying land to obtain food and other essentials for thousands of years, current rates, extents and intensities of LULCC are far greater than ever in history, driving unprecedented changes in ecosystems and environmental processes at local, regional and global scales. These changes encompass the greatest environmental concerns of human populations today, including climate change, biodiversity loss and the pollution of water, soils and air. Monitoring and mediating the negative consequences of LULCC while sustaining the production of essential resources has therefore become a major priority of researchers and policymakers around the world.”More information can be found here: http://ecotope.org/people/ellis/papers/ellis_eoe_lulcc_2007.pdf“USGS scientists have a long tradition of providing high-quality, consistent, and relevant land-cover data for the United States, using our archive of current and historical remote sensing data. The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) provides consistent, spatially explicit, periodically updated maps of land cover for the United States, with mapped dates for 1992, 2001, 2006, and 2011 (in progress). The USGS Land Cover Trends project has mapped and analyzed historical land-cover change from 1973 to 2000 using the Landsat satellite image archive. The Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools Project (LANDFIRE) provides multiple landscape attributes to support land managers and modelers. Together, these data provide a suite of data and information on current and recent historical land-cover change for the United States.Scientists at EROS are using their experience in mapping land cover and their knowledge of land-cover change processes to temporally extend these databases beyond the dates of available remote sensing data. Using the EROS FOREcasting SCEnarios of Land-Cover (FORE-SCE) model, EROS scientists are modeling land-cover change both into the future, using scenario-based modeling approaches, and for "backcasting" land cover for historical periods. In combination with USGS remote sensing based land-cover data, EROS' modeling efforts result in consistent, annual land-cover maps from 1938 through 2100, with multiple scenarios of potential land cover for future periods.”More details about USGS efforts can be found here: https://www.usgs.gov/land-resources/eros/lulc