The Influence of Human Demography on Land Cover Change in the Great Lakes States, USA.

The Great Lakes region contains productive agricultural and forest lands, but it is also highly urbanized, with 32 of its 52 million residents living in nine large metropolitan areas. Urbanization of undeveloped areas may adversely affect the productivity of agricultural and forest lands, and the provision of ecosystem services. We combine demographic and remote sensing data to evaluate land cover change in the region using a two-phase statistical modeling approach that predicts the incidence and extent of land cover change for each of the region's 10,579 county subdivisions.