Abstract: Land use and land cover change has aroused increasing attention of scientists worldwide since1990.Recognizing the importance of this change to other global environmental change and sustainable development issues,the International Geosphere-Biosphere ProgrammeIGBP)and the HumanDimensions of Global Environmental Change ProgrammeHDP)initiated a joint core projectLand Use and Land Cover Change(LUCC)and published a Science/Research Plan for the project.To promote the national LUCC projects,the paper presents a general review on the basic concepts,background,and Progress on the metnodologies of international LUCC researches.Land use/land cover is not a new research domain but is given new meanings and research contents in the context of global environmental change.Based on the definition of land cover given bythe IGBP/HDP and other international institutions,the author proposes a new translated term ofland cover in Chinese that matches the definition closely.This will avoid misunderstanding of thedomestic LUCC projects at early stages.Land cover changes refer to conversion and modification of vegetation,changes on biodiversity,soil quality,runoff,erosion,sedimentation and land productivity.International researches onLUCC involve:1)influence of LUCC on systematic global enviromental changes like biogeochemicalcircles and climatic variation,and cumulative global environmental changes like eforestation,biodiversity reduction and land degradation;2)response of LUCC to global environmental changes;3)LUCC and sustainable development including the sustainability of different land uses.The fundamental scientific issue of LUCC research is the dynamics of land use and coverchanges,which is extremely significant to the prediction of the global environmental change in thenext 50 to 100 years.The modedling of causes-use-cover system is challenge because of its inherentcomplexity.An integrated approach to the modeling is necessary that combines:1)large-scale onsite case study approach to land use dynamics;2)direct observation and measurement of land coverchange by using remote sensing images;and 3)regional and global modeling of economic processesrelated to LUCC.

Key words: land use, land cover, global environmental change