The Great Plains of the United States has seen a lot of changes in land use over the years, with native grasslands being turned into farmland and grazing areas. To understand how future changes might affect the environment, researchers created different scenarios to predict what could happen. They used a special model to map out how the land might be used in the future, based on different scenarios. The results showed that scenarios focused on making money led to more natural land being lost, while scenarios focused on the environment saw less change. This information is now being used to study land use across the entire United States.