Definition: Reclamation

Category: Land Use/Land Cover

A flow involving the creation of open land to areas previously developed (e.g. reclamation of mineral workings).These processes can further be categorised concerning direction (conversion or modification), magnitude (amount of change) and pace (rate of change).
It should be mentioned that the added value of land cover and land use changes and the retrieval of undergoing processes and indicators highly depend on the thematic and spatial detail of land cover and land use information. It has to be stated that land cover and land use information in general provide quantitative information (e.g. land cover/use categories, area estimates). Additional information concerning qualitative characteristics (e.g. farming practise, ecological value) is necessary to sufficiently describe the implicated processes. 
This concerns also the analysis of the driving forces underlying land cover and land use changes such as economic, political, social, environmental and others forces. They are manifold and interrelated, which makes the analysis a highly complex one. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/statmanuals/files/KS-34-00-407-__-I-EN.pdf#page=12