From Land Cover Change to Coupled Human–Environment Systems
Land system science emerged in the 1990s as researchers sought to understand how human activities and environmental processes interact to shape land use and land cover change. Early international collaboration under the Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) project (1994–2005) aimed to identify “cause-to-cover” relationships and emphasized monitoring and modeling major land cover changes while also identifying common drivers across regions (Turner II et al., 1993; Geist and Lambin, 2002, 2004).
Parallel work under the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (GCTE) project examined ecosystem responses to land-use pressures and highlighted feedbacks within the Earth system (Pitelka et al., 2007). These efforts laid the foundation for understanding land as part of a dynamic, interconnected system.
Land system science has emerged as an interdisciplinary field focusing on the interactions between human activities and the terrestrial environment.
Verburg et al., 2015
The Establishment of the Global Land Project
From LUCC to GLP
The Global Land Project (GLP) was launched in 2005 as a successor to LUCC and GCTE. Its purpose was not to conduct a single research project, but to support synthesis, integration, and agenda-setting across the growing land system science community. As a joint core project of the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP), GLP reflected the inherently interdisciplinary character of the field. It helped consolidate comparative research efforts, organize synthesis activities, and identify emerging scientific priorities.
A Platform for Synthesis and Agenda-Setting
Over its first decade, GLP organized Open Science Meetings (2010, 2014, 2016), workshops, and comparative research initiatives to foster collaboration across regions and disciplines. Evaluations confirmed both the maturation of land system science and the continued need for synthesis and coordination across the global community.
From Project to Programme
With the launch of Future Earth in 2014, GLP transitioned from a time-bound project to a sustained international research network. The adoption of the name Global Land Programme, reflected this shift, signaling its expanded role in coordination, synthesis, and community-building. This transition marked a shift from a defined project phase toward a longer-term commitment to supporting shared inquiry across the land system science community.
Advancing Theory and Synthesis (2016-2023)
In recent years, land system science has deepened its focus on theory building and comparative analysis, seeking to identify recurring mechanisms and generalizable processes across regions (Magliocca et al., 2018; Meyfroidt et al., 2019; Turner, 2020). GLP-supported scholarship during this period advanced synthesis and methodological integration across modeling, remote sensing, and socio-economic research traditions, as reflected in the 2019 Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability special issue on land systems.
These efforts sought to strengthen connections between place-based research and broader cross-scale dynamics and structured explanation. More recently, collaborative syntheses such as the 10 Facts about Land Systems and related comparative efforts (Meyfroidt et al., 2022; Garrett et al., 2025) have distilled core insights from the field and clarified recurring patterns across diverse land systems.
GLP Today
Today, GLP operates as a global research network supporting comparative research, synthesis, and agenda-setting in land system science. Through its Science Plan and Implementation Strategy (2024–2028), GLP continues to foster collaboration across regions and research traditions while building on decades of work at the interface of human and environmental land systems.
