Linking global land cover/use change modelling with land management.

People have increasingly been shaping the surface of our planet. Land use/land cover (LULC) change - the human footprint on Earth - is not only cause but also consequence of global environmental and socioeconomic change. As one of the main contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and biodiversity loss, it is key for current sustainability debates and climate change mitigation. For better understanding its processes and environmental effects, more accurate land change reconstructions are needed at the global scale. Exploiting potentials of growingly available observational data (e.g. remote sensing), the thesis aims to develop a data-driven reconstruction of global LULC change from 1950-2015. The proposed model allocates land change based on multiple data, including satellite-based maps, statistical inventories, quantifying both net and gross LULC transitions around the globe. To provide a complete picture of land change dimensions, land transitions are linked with land management inventories for agriculture and forestry in selected world regions. Forest change and management dynamics are analysed to derive carbon stocks in European forests. The role of cropland change and management practices for GHG is evaluated for the major crop producing countries. Finally, statistics of crop imports from distant regions to Europe will be utilised for quantifying the displaced land change and its involved GHG for European food production. The spatial dimensions of this teleconnection between global LULC change and local consumption are demonstrated by applying a LULC change reconstruction that re-allocates displaced and outsourced cropland back to European land surface.