Land cover is the observed (bio)physical cover on the earth's surface whereas land use is characterized by the arrangements, activities and inputs people undertake in a certain land cover type to produce, change or maintain it. Land cover data documents how much of a region is covered by forests, wetlands, impervious surfaces, agriculture, and other land and water types. Land use shows how people use the landscape – whether for development, conservation, or mixed uses. The different types of land cover can be managed or used quite differently. Land cover and land use play a pivotal role in natural resource assessment and management, environmental modeling and decision-making. They contribute significantly to earth-atmosphere interactions and biodiversity loss, are major factors in sustainable development and human responses to global change, and are important for integrated modelling and assessment of environmental issues in general. The decline in biological diversity (environmental problem 4) in the Lake Chad basin is a major concern. It is, however, very difficult to ascertain the extent of the problem with any accuracy because of the lack of available data and the security problems in the basin affecting almost all the protected areas. Figures obtained in 2008 from previous studies revealed a serious decline in biodiversity as a result of the intensification of human activities and damage and alterations to ecosystems. For example, deforestation caused by the rising demand for fuel wood and shifting cultivation is a widespread problem in all the basin countries. However, the improvement in rainfall levels in recent years has restored vegetation cover in some places, particularly in areas affected by armed conflicts, where people abandon their land when they flee the fighting. In areas with high population density, such as the states of Yobe and Borno in Nigeria and the southern regions of Chad, cropland is overused and the vegetation cover has been destroyed or reduced to a sparse herbaceous layer. Severe erosion can also be observed in these areas, along with soil hardening, which prevents the infiltration of water and therefore contributes to a decline in the water table. In regions situated in southern Chad, northern Cameroon and the north-eastern part of the Central African Republic, shifting cotton cultivation has led to the systematic destruction of savannah woodland.

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