Such data are needed for a wide range of applications including, among others, wildlife habitat assessment, conservation planning, emergency preparedness and response, water quality assessment, property valuation and appraisal, and municipal and county planning and zoning. Land use and land cover are distinctly different and are best presented as two separate databases. Land cover is defined as the type of material that covers the earth's surface at a specific location at a specific time.
Land use is the manner in which human beings utilize a specific tract of the earth's surface.
In an area of single-family residential land use, the land cover at a specific location might be asphalt, concrete, grass or trees. Note that land cover may change dramatically over short periods of time. For example, a field that had a land cover of wheat in May might be bare soil in August. The land use will not have changed during this period. The level of spatial and classificatory detail obtainable, accuracy, cost and temporal currency of products developed will vary with the data analysis methodology used and the skills and experience of data analysts.