Statistical Terms Glossary

This is the ability to use land and other natural resources, to control the resources and to transfer land rights to the land to take advantage of other opportunities. In many customary frameworks, rights of access to land stem from membership of a particular social group. The nature and strength of the access rights held by a given member of society are determined by his or her participation in a network of social relations.

The stage in the development process at which the land required to implement a plan or project is obtained by either public or private agencies.

This refers to those institutions that manage rules of land and make them relevant and operational.

Agricultural landowners often lease their land to tenant farmers, who provide the labour to produce and bring in the crop. An owner can be paid by a tenant in one of two ways: an agreed cash in advance rental amount (cash rents) or as a percentage of the profits from the sale of the crop when it is sold (sharecropping).

Terrestrial algae are effectively surviving in an aquatic environment on land.Soil algae survive in a film of soil water.

Land and buildings comprises all land and buildings located within an economy, except that owned by foreign governments (such as embassies) are, by convention, regarded as being owned by residents. If an actual owner is a non-resident, the owner is treated as if the ownership had been transferred to a resident notional institutional unit that is deemed to own the land and buildings. The non-resident has a financial investment in this notional unit, which is therefore a direct investment enterprise

Assets accounts applied to land and eco-systems.

Land and surface water assets are defined as the areas within the national territory that provide direct or indirect use benefits (or that may provide such benefits one day) through the provision of space for economic and non-economic (for example recreational) human activities. Land and surface water assets are sub-divided into five categories: land underlying buildings and structures; agricultural land and associated surface water; wooded land and associated surface water; major water bodies; and other land.

Land banks consist of general land available for investments, as determined by local land-use plans, where investors can pick available areas in which to invest.

Basic land accounts relate the use of land and land cover from an environmental perspective, in terms of stocks and changes in stocks In particular they show the changes in land classified to each type of land cover over a period with identification as to whether this is due to human or natural processes.

Refers to land categories, reflecting quality classes, capability classes or grade, depending upon the characteristics of the land and/or its potential for agricultural use.

Concerns the flow of water resources across agricultural land (which can cause flooding and landslides) and the loss of soil sediment from agricultural land into rivers, lakes and reservoirs.

Land cover reflects the (bio) physical dimension of the earth’s surface and corresponds in some regard to the notion of ecosystems. Typical examples for land cover categories are built-up areas, grassland, forests or rivers and lakes.

The land-cover change matrix cross-tabulates land cover at two different points in time. It shows how much of the opening stock of a land cover category is still the same in the closing stock and the gross flows between the different categories of land cover.

Land degradation is the reduction or loss of the biological or economic productivity and complexity of rain—fed cropland, irrigated cropland, or range, pasture, forest or woodlands resulting from natural processes, land uses or other human activities and habitation patterns such as land contamination, soil erosion and the destruction of the vegetation cover

Refers to the removal of land from production, usually for supply control, regional development or environmental purposes.

Land evaluation is the process whereby the suitability of land for specific purposes, such as irrigated agriculture, is assessed. Land evaluation involves the selection of suitable land and suitable cropping, and of irrigation and management alternatives that are physically and financially practicable and economically viable. The main product of land evaluation is a land classification that indicates the suitability of various kinds of land for specific land uses, usually depicted on maps with accompanying reports.; The assessment of land performance when used for a specified purpose, involving the execution and interpretation of surveys and studies of land forms, soils, vegetation, climate and other aspects of land in order to identify and make a comparison of promising kinds of land use in terms applicable to the objectives of the evaluation.