Introduction

Land is not a uniform resource. Walk around your neighbourhood and you will see it used in many different ways — a river flowing through a valley, a patch of forest, a road cutting across a field, a school building, a park where children play. Each of these is a different use of the same basic resource: land.

The reason land is used so differently is that different types of land are suited to different purposes. A steep, rocky slope cannot grow rice; a floodplain cannot support a skyscraper. Human beings therefore assess the qualities of land and decide how to put it to use — whether for production (growing crops, raising animals), for residence (houses, apartments), or for recreation (parks, playgrounds).

In short, every piece of land around you — the field where crops are grown, the pasture where animals graze, the road you travel on, the school building you sit in — represents a specific decision about how land is being used as a resource. Understanding these patterns of land use is the first step in studying land resources and agriculture.