1. Land Usage How do we manage and use the land around us?

2. Land Usage  The way we use land is often described as land cover – the objects and buildings found on a patch of land.  Common land covers are forests, rangeland, crops and development.  In addition, land often contains one or more resources that can be consumed, such as wood, crops or minerals.

3. Land Usage Land CoverHuman uses RangelandGrazing livestock and wildlife ForestWood, fish, nuts, and maintaining wildlife CroplandAgriculture ParksRecreation, preserving existing ecosystems UrbanDevelopmental and residential construction OtherOften difficult to use, such as mountains, wetlands, etc.

4. Land Usage  Up till 1850, most people inhabited rural regions – land with very sparse population and a lot of open space.  This changed with the Industrial Revolution. The introduction of machinery transferred a lot of jobs from rural to urban communities – those with a very high density of people and facilities.

5. Land Usage  Even today, people are dependent on resources obtained in rural regions, such as potable water, agriculture, paper products and oxygen.  Since these resources are obtained from natural and artificial resources, we call these ecosystem resources.  The average citizen in a developed country uses 8 hectares of land resources!

6. Urbanization  Urbanization is the process of moving from rural to urban regions.  It also includes the merging of smaller regions into urban areas. See Denver- Boulder and D.C.-Baltimore.  As urban areas grow, they need to carefully plan out their development. Sufficient infrastructure must be provided to all inhabitants.

7. Urbanization  If population exceeds the carrying capacity of the city, living conditions will decline precipitously.  Known as urban crisis.  Urban sprawl results when a city expands into previously rural areas. This often comes from the construction of suburbs or housing compounds.