Global land cover change from 8000 BP to -50 BP‬

[munroe9ify]

Remember that land use isn't land cover!! It shows the global pattern of land cover DUE (in large part) to human land use, but it's not one and the same.

[jennijapanime]

Citations?

[bcrounse]

Very interesting! For future work, might I suggest adding a BC/AD timescale as well? There's a lot of action in the past ~500 years, and I found myself mentally trying to convert the BP timescale to AD, in order to mentally align what is happening on the map with historical dates. It would probably also be helpful to slow down the last ~200 years or so.

[sendungde]

@bcrounse I second that! I have a hard time making sense from the BP time scale.

[trevallyn]

@bcrounse Slowing down the last 200 years would sort of defeat some of the purpose of the video which presumably is to highlight the rapid changes that have taken place within that time period.

I do think a visual indicator of time along the bottom, like a sliding scale would be helpful. Be easier to view at the same time as watching the map, than having to read the numbers.

[vaith777]

Great animation! I'm just curious as to why areas like the Sahara and Australian Outback remain covered in natural vegetation? Are we to assume that by 'natural vegetation' you mean land which hasn't been cleared for human activity? In other words, that a desert is technically covered in natural vegetation because no humans have cleared the land for cultivation?

[arvegroup]

@vaith777 Yes, you are absolutely right! Even though many deserts are only sparsely vegetated, they have, by and large, not been extensively modified for human land uses. This is especially true for large parts of the Sahara and the interior of Australia.

Thanks for your comment!