Indian National Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences and US National Academy of Sciences (2001): Growing populations, changing landscapes. Studies from India, China, and the United States.

In the study of land change, as an essential forcing function of global environmental change and the medium through which many human responses to global change will occur, case studies rank first to build a compendium of information about local land use decisions and land cover dynamics. Especially rigid comparative studies are important to inform the modelling community about processes at work, finally intended to arrive at a contingent theory or synthesis of land change. In 1995, an international research effort was formalized through the Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) project which pursues a dual approach, i.e., through (in)direct observations and projection by models. The so-called Tri-Academy project, from which this publication arises, has been one of the outstanding LUCC endorsed research projects under Focus 1, “Land Use Dynamics—Comparative Case Study Analysis”.