The land system, including freshwater, is the critical land component within the earth system. Both terrestrial and aquatic land ecosystems provide a multiplicity of ecosystem services, such as clean water, air and flood control. Intensification and diversification of land use and advances in technology have led to rapid changes in biogeochemical cycles, hydrologic processes and landscape dynamics. The Global Land Project (GLP), established in 2006, aims at improving the understanding and modelling of the effects of human actions on natural processes of the terrestrial biosphere. Changes in land use and management affect the states, properties and functions of ecosystems, which, in turn, affect the provision of ecosystem services, and, ultimately, affect human well-being.

Image: Copyright UN Photo/Martine Perret