Unit 3: Changing the Land - Land Use, Land Cover and Change
Core concepts
Unit 3 examines how natural and human processes reshape land cover and land use at local, regional and global scales. You must be able to read and interpret land-use maps, choropleth maps, topographic maps and satellite imagery, and to describe spatial patterns using direction, distance, scale and density. Understand the difference between land cover (what is physically on the surface - forest, cropland, ice, urban) and land use (the human purpose - recreation, agriculture, conservation). Know the drivers of change: population growth, economic development, urbanisation, agricultural intensification, deforestation, mining and climate change. Be able to explain feedbacks - for example, deforestation reducing transpiration and rainfall, or urban expansion increasing runoff and heat.
Traps in questions
A common trap is confusing pattern with process: describing where change occurs instead of explaining why. Another is ignoring scale - a process visible locally may not explain a regional trend. Students also misread choropleth legends (class intervals are not equal) and mistake correlation for causation. When asked to evaluate a management strategy, address both environmental and socioeconomic costs, not just benefits.
Worked example
If asked to describe the distribution of deforestation in a supplied dataset, structure your answer as: general pattern (concentrated in tropical latitudes), specific locations (Amazon Basin, Southeast Asia), and exceptions or anomalies. Then explain with two drivers and one consequence.
Rule of thumb
For every 'describe' question, name the pattern, give a location and quantify it; for every 'explain' question, give a process and link it back to the observed pattern.