９０年代以来,利用遥感进行大面积土地覆盖土地利用的研究取得了一系列重要进展。已建立的全球及区域土地覆盖土地利用数据库正在得到广泛的应用,取得明显的社会效益和经济效益。土地覆盖土地利用及其变化的研究成果也被应用于有关全球环境变化国际公约的执行监督。利用遥感进行大面积土地详查已经逐步摆脱单一制图的传统概念,正在向建立以应用为目的且便于用户使用的综合信息数据库的方向迈进。此外,如何对大面积土地覆盖数据库进行精度评价已引起广泛重视,出现了一些新的理论和研究方法。进入２１世纪,全球和区域土地覆盖土地利用的遥感研究将进一步深化

Since the 1990s,a series of important achievements have been gained by utilizing Remote Sensing to research macro land cover and land use.The founded global and local land cover and land use database are being used widely,and have gained great social and economic benefits.The research results of land cover,land use,and their changes have been used to supervise the execution of international pact about global environmental changes.The method that utilizes RS technique to perform extensive detailed land investigations has gradually cast off the traditional concept that this work can only be used for mapping.It is now progressing along the direction of building an application oriented,synthetic database easy for user to perform.Moreover as to how to evaluate the precision of a land cover database of such a large scale has aroused widespread concern.As a follow up,a number of new theories and methodologies came into being accordingly.Upon entering the 21st century,it is expected that the RS research about global and local land cover and land use will gain even greater progress.