Land cover indicates the physical land type such as forest or

open water whereas land use documents how people are

using the land
"Land cover" is distinct from "land use", despite the two terms often being used interchangeably.
Land use is a description of how people utilize the land and
of socio-economic activity. Urban and agricultural land uses are
two of the most commonly known land use classes. At any one
point or place, there may be multiple and alternate land uses,
the specification of which may have a political dimension.

Land cover data documents how much of a region is covered by forests, wetlands, impervious
surfaces, agriculture, and other land and water types. Water types include wetlands or open water.
Land use shows how people use the landscape – whether for development, conservation, or mixed
uses. The different types of land cover can be managed or used quite differently.

Land cover can be determined by analyzing satellite and aerial imagery. Land use cannot be
determined from satellite imagery. Land cover maps provide information to help managers best
understand the current landscape. To see change over time, land cover maps for several different
years are needed. With this information, managers can evaluate past management decisions as well
as gain insight into the possible effects of their current decisions before they are implemented.

Coastal managers use land cover data and maps to better understand the impacts of natural
phenomena and human use of the landscape. Maps can help managers assess urban growth, model
water quality issues, predict and assess impacts from floods and storm surges, track wetland losses
and potential impacts from sea level rise, prioritize areas for conservation efforts, and compare land
cover changes with effects in the environment or to connections in socioeconomic changes such as
increasing population.

Land Use and Land Values

13.1 Introduction Land-use decisions Urban land use is determined by the various decisions made by
firms, households and the government (primarily local authorities). Firms occupying shops, offices
and factories have on occasions to decide whether to expand and, if so, whether to move or
redevelop the existing site. Moreover, in a dynamic economy, new firms come into being and have
to choose where to locate. Similarly, households decide where to live, and if many people move in a
particular direction - for example, to the suburbs - it profoundly affects the character of urban land
use. Fmally, government authorities influence land use through the control of development, overall
transport policy and the siting of roads, and by local authority house-building and comprehensive
redevelopment. Our first approach will be to assume a market economy where: (i) resources are
allocated on the basis of prices, costs and profits; (ii) firms and households have preferences for
settling in particular locations and these preferences are reflected in the price/rent they are
prepared to pay for the use of land; (iii) owners ofland sell/let to the highest bidder; (iv) knowledge
of the market by buyers and sellers is sufficient to provide competition; (v) there are no dynamic
changes, the transport system, transport costs, technology, and so on remaining unchanged; and (vi)
there is no government interference in the market.

The determination of the price of land The price ofland, like the prices of other goods, is determined
by the interaction of supply and demand in the market. In the sense that the total supply of land is
fixed, the price of land can be regarded as being determined by demand alone. Of more immediate
concern, however, is the price and use of land in particular locations. Here again, for spatial reasons,
land is limited in supply, especially land in the centre of an urban area. Nevertheless the supply of
sites for any one use cannot be regarded as being completely inelastic, since alternative, although
less-preferred, locations exist as we move outwards from the centre, the number of such sites
increasing exponentially as the radius lengthens. Thus any increase in the demand for land of a
particular type or for a particular use is capable of bringing forth additional supplies. Moreover,
greater intensity of site use is possible, chiefly by the addition of capital to build upwards. Demand
by firms and households for a particular location depends upon the expected net revenue
yield/utility. The price/rent is what has to be paid by a particular use to prevent the site going to
some other use. That use which can outbid all others will secure the given site. In long-run
equilibrium, therefore, land will, within the geographical and institutional framework and subject to
the imperfections of the real property market, have moved to its most profitable use.

Since different locations have different use-capacities, a pattern of differential rents emerges.
Furthermore, the pattern of land use reflects the competition between alternative uses for sites in
the market. Thus land values and land use are determined simultaneously. Indeed we can extend the
relationship to include intensity of use. The greatest demand will be for those sites having the
greatest relative advantage. This is likely to make intensive development of the site profitable (see p.
90). Those users (such as offices) who can use the site most intensively will be able to pay the
highest price/rent. Often, however, this results in a site having a split use - for example, shops
outbidding other users for the ground-floor of a building, with offices or residences occupying the
upper storeys.

Our initial task, therefore, is to examine what determines rent-earning capacity - the maximum
amount which a particular activity can bid for land in a given location. In general, this bid will depend
upon businessmen's profit-maximising decisions and households' utility-maximising considerations.
The businessman will seek that location which maximises net gain, that is, the difference between
receipts and costs, not simply the one which maximises sales revenue or minimises production costs.
Similarly, a household seeks to maximise the utility advantage of a locality over costs of travel. As a
first approach we look at the model ofland use and prices formulated in 1826 by Von Thunen, a
German economist. This concentrates on differences in relative transport costs in different types of
agricultural production.

Source: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-24441-6_13