Land cover is also a primary determinant of land use and of land management activities.
Satellites offer the unique new capability of obtaining land cover information over large areas and at specific time periods. Due to the strong influence of vegetation on the satellite measurements, land cover and its changes can be tracked in a systematic manner. Since satellites offer flexibility in spatial resolution, the coverage and level of detail can be adjusted so that the information is obtained in an optimum manner. For global change-related applications, regional and national coverage at frequent periods are most important. Through collaboration between the Canadian Forest Service and the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, a new land cover map of Canada was produced using 1995 satellite data.