Scientists, governments and NGOs have a critical need to understand the reasons behind land degradation, desertification and loss of biodiversity. Development of this understanding needs to be put on a firmer empirical and analytical footing. Current data deficiencies are due to limited biophysical and socio-economic databases that often are temporally and spatially limited. The socio-economic dimensions in particular are also often too simplistically analysed, without capturing the causal processes behind changing land management and land use practices. This approach to understanding the causes and extent of land degradation and loss of biodiversity would be greatly enhanced by the use of land use or land cover change analysis, coupled with ground assessments of human activities and biophysical measurements. Obtaining this knowledge is greatly enhanced with use of an analytical framework to guide the collection, analysis and interpretation of the root causes data and information. A framework is particularly useful for land use change research due to the complexity of the problem. This paper provides a guide and a framework for designing such research; technical methodological guides are available in other LUCID working papers and elsewhere.