 Land change models can be built from these types of data to assess future shifts in land cover 

One of the major land cover issues (as with all natural resource inventories) is that every survey defines similarly named categories in different ways.For instance, there are many definitions of "forest"—sometimes within the same organisation—that may or may not incorporate a number of different forest features (e.g., stand height, canopy cover, strip width, inclusion of grasses, and rates of growth for timber production).Areas without trees may be classified as forest cover "if the intention is to re-plant" (UK and Ireland), while areas with many trees may not be labelled as forest "if the trees are not growing fast enough" (Norway and Finland).