Mapping Land Use

So lately all I have time for is looking through other people's blogs and reading what is goin' on outside of the campus (which is definitely more fun than reading what is goin' on at the campus), but I read Highly Allochthonous today, and found this post by Ms. Jefferson.

Land use has been mapped globally and regionally and everywhere in between looking at different use practices to use types (and yes those are different). However, what caught my attention to this was the use of the word "biome". It is a word that is usually applied to natural ecosystems that share climatic characteristics that affects the biotic systems found in those areas. Consequently, those biomes would also affect the land use. This map plots the types of usage, but more interestingly these land use types roughly approximate the biomes that are found there as well.

Picture from http://www.ecotope.org/ "A Framework for Ecology & Earth Science in the 21st Century" by Erle C. Ellis and Navin Ramankutty

Picture from Wikipedia entry "Biomes" - Vegetation - No Legend

Pretty much the general trend is that humans will use whatever land they can (or plants can) survive in. I would like to see what they mean by each of the types of land use, such as the definitions of their use of "Rice Villages" and "Irrigated Villages". However, this is a great example of GIS and land use mapping. Now, to see if I have time to explore more of the Ecotope website...