"Land use is characterised by the arrangements, activities and inputs people undertake in a certain land cover type to produce, change or maintain it" (from "Terminology for integrated resources planning and management", FAO, 1999).

Land use concerns the products and/or benefits obtained from use of the land as well as the land management actions (activities) carried out by humans to produce those products and benefits.

Land-use surveys usually target information that allows one to answer one or more of the following questions concerning the current use of the land (1) What? - the purpose of activities undertaken (2) Where? - the location (3) When? - the temporal aspects of various activities undertaken (4) How? - the technologies employed (5) How much? - quantitative measures e.g. areas, products (6) Why? - the reasons underlying the current land use

Agricultural land-use data are important for many of the regional to global activities currently undertaken by FAO (e.g. the validation of agricultural land evaluation; the preparation of perspective studies on agricultural production and food security; early warning for food security; natural disaster relief operations; farming systems studies; policy formulation).