Land Cover VS Land Use

What difference between Land Cover and Land Use?

Land Cover refers to the surface cover on the ground, whether vegetation, urban infrastructure, water, bare soil or other; it does not describe the use of land, and the use of land may be different for lands with the same cover type. For instance, a land cover type of forest may be used for timber production, wildlife management or recreation; it might be private land, a protected watershed or a popular state park. Land cover can be determined by analyzing satellite and aerial imagery. Land use cannot be determined from satellite imagery.

Land Use refers to the purpose the land serves, for example, recreation, wildlife habitat or agriculture; it does not describe the surface cover on the ground. For example, a recreational land use could occur in a forest, shrubland, grasslands or on manicured lawns. Land Use expresses how humans use the biophysical or ecological properties of land. Land use includes the modification and/or management of land for agriculture, settlements, forestry and other uses including those that exclude humans from land, as in the designation of nature reserves for conservation.

It is often impossible to observe land use by examining only land cover by remote sensing as illustrated in the figure. For example, the land cover type of trees might indicate a land use type of plantation or a land use type of conservation.

source: http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/154142/

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