The article discusses a method to separate land cover (what the land looks like) from land use (how the land is used) using data primitives. By identifying key dimensions that describe the processes being studied, the researchers were able to distinguish between the two concepts. They applied this method to a dataset of US land cover and found areas where land use and land cover were confused. This separation helps with environmental modeling and planning by making it easier to integrate land data. Maintaining land use and land cover as distinct concepts in data collection is important for accurate analysis.