What is land cover?

Much geographic information is an interpretation of reality and it is possible for multiple interpretations to coexist. This is unproblematic for the research community but, as the numbers of users increase through initiatives resulting in data integration on an unprecedented scale, such as E-science and GRID, issues of information meaning and conceptualisation become more important. We explore these issues through the mapping of land cover and the variety of conceptions of land-cover features that may be held by actors in the creation, distribution, and use of the information. Current metadata do not report the wider meaning of the information categories in terms of the decisions that were made and by whom in specifying class conceptualisations.