How to analyse 'Factors' Affecting Land Use Change

To clarify, are you interested in how you can define the 'factors' contributing to land cover change, or in understanding the degree to which each 'factor' contributed to land cover change? or both?

land use and cover change mainly depends upon the socio-economic drivers, population increase/industrialization/farmers' preception for alternate land use types depending upon the technological development forsome beneficial cr ops/cropping systems, more availability of nutrients etc

we can visualise the land use cover change through MODIS periodic passes

regards

You can find a wealth of relevant information, both theoretical and empirical, by googling "land use transition matrix".  Good luck.

Please clarify and respond to Jessica Price's questions above so we could all post more concrete answers for you.  Thank you.

Thanks Dr Healy for nice direction to colleagues, it is really useful information, talking about changes in LUCC, some unique way of representation graphics to demo LUCC

Thanks

thanks to all, i'll follow that direction. for miss Jessica's query, i'm interested to know how i can define the 'factors' contributing to land cover change, like which way/or what type of data need when i will be in survey respective study area, for analysis. do you get my point?

In a third world perspective, change in land use is influenced more by the local government officials. People usually are allowed (most of the time) to change ground cover as they like it. This is however not in accordance to available laws. Our government is relatively poor when it comes to laws implementation. In my province for example, the main instrument to guide or bases for what is allowable land-use changes is up to now absent.

The identification of factors or the analysis of it will depend on the data gathered and how it was gathered.

we have quantify the main bio-physical and socio-economic aspectsresponsible for land use and cover change, may be some case studies in various regions over the globe. This must be an important component to be included in climate change studies for evaluating integrated impact assessment

regards

Just a word on how to use land use transition matrix.  I cited it, firstly, as a simple key word into relevant literature.  But it has some valuable content of its own.  Land doesn't just change use--it changes from one use to another.  Urban land is very unlikely to change into forest land because of both land values and transition costs.  Cropland can go in and out from grazing with little cost from year to year.  That's one reason why Conservation Reserve Program in US is so popular with farmers. Land can go from crops to trees (either forest or plantation) but return will not be realized for 10-40 years.  It is much less likely to go back.  Naveen wisely brings up climate change.  It can affect profitability of all land uses, but the first thing to look for is whether it pushes any single use below the margin of profitability.  It is also worth looking at regions where lots of land is at one or more margins.  There is little chance that downtown London will go into grazing nor that corn/soybean land in central Illinois will become forest.  I looked at a region at the margin in my 1985 book, COMPETITION FOR LAND IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH.  It has lots of hypotheses on why land changes use, but also many thoughts on the important question of WHERE.

especially thanks to mr. Robert G. Healy and others for their valuable responses...