568 Land-Use Issues affects land cover and biodiversity are not affected by these limitations However, the application of the maps and processes to specific areas on the planet may fail because of estimation An important limitation occurs in large-scale mapping of land use and cover Some minimum mapping unit (the resolution) is used in all compilations of land cover and use Only one use or cover can be assigned to this minimum unit, and it is the dominant use or cover that is assigned and assumed to occur uniformly over the entire unit For example, a unit that is simply recorded as forest might actually be covered by 40% forest, 30% lake, 20% grassland, and 10% building Recording only the dominant cover reduces the occurrence of dispersed (rarely dominant) covers that typify many human-dominated land covers Therefore, large-scale maps likely underestimate the actual effect that humans have on land cover Projected early estimates of land use and cover are by necessity approximations The map of preagricultural land cover (see Figure 3) was derived entirely by modeling the plant growth suspected under varying climatological and soil conditions Cropland estimates in the 1700s were estimated by assuming that 0.2 of land was cleared for each human (Richards, 1990) This number is highly debatable because it varies considerably per region and per time period (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2011) Even the population size at that time was an estimate and has considerable uncertainty in many regions (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2010) Regional estimates of land cover and use are also of inconsistent quality FAO data vary greatly in quality by country because uniform scales and cover categories are not used Yet even these large sources of estimation and inaccuracy not affect the general conclusion that at global scale agriculture has increased tremendously, replaced native forests and grasslands, and caused declines in biodiversity Another important bias is an underestimation of habitat degradation Mapping and imagery capture the basic pattern of habitat conversion and fragmentation, but rarely detect changes in the quality of habitats that retain their basic structure Selective logging, understory trampling and removal, and disturbance by human presence are not recorded on global scales Regional, local, and more subjective measures are needed to assess these changes in land use See also: Agriculture, Industrialized Agriculture, Sustainable Biodiversity in Logged and Managed Forests Deforestation and Land Clearing Desertification Grassland Ecosystems Landscape Diversity Range Ecology, Global Livestock Influences Timber Industry References Alkemade R, van Oorschot M, Miles L, Nelleman C, Bakkenes M, and ten Brink B (2009) GLOBIO3: A framework to investigate options for reducing global terrestrial biodiverity loss Ecosystems 12 Arino O, Ranera F, Bicheron P, et al (2008) Globcover Frascati: European Space Agency, (Special Publication) ESA SP Berry BJL (1991) Urbanization In: Turner II BL, Clark WC, Kates WR, Richards JF, Matthews JT, and Meyer WB, (eds.) 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