Global and regional economic and environmental changes are increasingly influencing local land-use, livelihoods, and ecosystems. At the same time, cumulative local land changes are driving global and regional changes in biodiversity and the environment. To understand the causes and consequences of these changes, land change science (LCS) draws on a wide array synthetic and meta-study techniques to generate global and regional knowledge from local case studies of land change. Here, we review the characteristics and applications of synthesis methods in LCS and assess the current state of synthetic research based on a meta-analysis of synthesis studies from 1995 to 2012. Publication of synthesis research is accelerating, with a clear trend toward increasingly sophisticated and quantitative methods, including meta-analysis. Detailed trends in synthesis objectives, methods, and land change phenomena and world regions most commonly studied are presented. Significant challenges to successful synthesis research in LCS are also identified, including issues of interpretability and comparability across case-studies and the limits of and biases in the geographic coverage of case studies. Nevertheless, synthesis methods based on local case studies will remain essential for generating systematic global and regional understanding of local land change for the foreseeable future, and multiple opportunities exist to accelerate and enhance the reliability of synthetic LCS research in the future. Demand for global and regional knowledge generation will continue to grow to support adaptation and mitigation policies consistent with both the local realities and regional and global environmental and economic contexts of land change.

中文翻译：

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土地变化科学综合：方法论模式，挑战和指南。

全球和区域的经济和环境变化正越来越多地影响当地的土地利用，生计和生态系统。同时，当地累积的土地变化正在推动生物多样性和环境的全球和区域变化。为了了解这些变化的原因和后果，土地变化科学（LCS）运用了各种各样的综合和元研究技术，可以从本地土地变化案例研究中获得全球和区域知识。在这里，我们回顾了LCS中合成方法的特点和应用，并基于1995年至2012年对合成研究的荟萃分析，评估了合成研究的现状。合成研究的出版正在加速，并且有朝着日益复杂和复杂的趋势发展。定量方法，包括荟萃分析。介绍了合成目标，方法和土地变化现象以及最常研究的世界区域的详细趋势。还确定了在LCS中成功进行综合研究的重大挑战，包括跨案例研究的可解释性和可比性问题，以及案例研究的地理范围的局限性和偏见。然而，基于本地案例研究的综合方法对于在可预见的未来产生对本地土地变化的系统的全球和区域理解仍然是必不可少的，并且存在多种机会来加速和增强未来合成LCS研究的可靠性。