Explaining the emergence of land-use frontiers.

Land-use expansion is linked to major sustainability concerns including climate change, food security and biodiversity loss. This expansion is largely concentrated in so-called 'frontiers', defined here as places experiencing marked transformations owing to rapid resource exploitation. Understanding the mechanisms shaping these frontiers is crucial for sustainability.

Large-area mapping of active cropland and short-term fallows in smallholder landscapes using PlanetScope data.

Cropland mapping in smallholder landscapes is challenged by complex and fragmented landscapes, labor-intensive and unmechanized land management causing high within-field variability, rapid dynamics in shifting cultivation systems, and substantial proportions of short-term fallows. To overcome these challenges, we here present a large-area mapping framework to identify active cropland and short-term fallows in smallholder landscapes for the 2020/2021 growing season at 4.77 m spatial resolution.

The extent of forest in dryland biomes.

Dryland biomes cover two-fifths of Earth's land surface, but their forest area is poorly known. Here, we report an estimate of global forest extent in dryland biomes, based on analyzing more than 210,000 0.5-hectare sample plots through a photo-interpretation approach using large databases of satellite imagery at (i) very high spatial resolution and (ii) very high temporal resolution, which are available through the Google Earth platform.