EVALUATING CHANGES IN LAND-COVER AND THEIR IMPORTANCE FOR GLOBAL CHANGE

During recent years, much progress has been made in integrating tradit ional natural science disciplines and in the development of multidisci plinary models. This is crucial for an increased understanding of the dynamics of the Earth system. The domination of human activities in al tering these dynamics is still increasing. However, few research proje cts have focused directly on understanding the motives for such intens ification. It has only recently keen acknowledged that improved unders tanding of human driving forces of global change is required to enable meaningful projections of plausible future states of the Earth system .