LMRC

In addition to land cover-land use, other types of monitoring data become more useful if they can be viewed and analyzed spatially. Several types of spatial information may be relevant:

• Boundaries: Where are political, institutional, or social forces manifest on the landscape? The boundaries of municipalities and other governance units are usually clearly defined, while the influences of local organizations (such as educational or extension projects) may be more diffuse. Different forms of social capital can also be mapped and used to understand the relation between local institutions, human interactions, and conditions on the ground (e.g., agricultural yields or the implementation of conservation practices).

• Location: Where are different variables of interest found on the landscape? For example, in addition to knowing how many schools or health centers exist in the landscape, identifying the location of these variables can provide much useful information. By mapping these facilities, it would be possible to track as indicators the percentage of the landscape’s population that lives within 3 km or a school or 1 km of a health center.

• Distribution and density: How are variables of interest distributed across the landscape? For example, mapping cases of water-borne diseases could help us understand in which areas these diseases are increasing or decreasing over time, and whether these increases or decreases are linked to landscape changes, such as the intensification of livestock operations or the planting of riparian buffers.

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