Title: Land use & landscape pattern change and its driving forces in Yumen City
Abstract: The quantitative evaluation on land use change and its influence on landscape pattern caused by land exploitation and reorganization at a large scale is significant to the sustainable use of local land resources.The study area in this research,the middle reaches of Shule River Watershed in Gansu,belongs to a typical area with dramatic exploitation and use of water and land resources in the arid area of Northwest China.Yumen City is a resource-exhausted city.Combined with the integrated technology of ecological quantity analytical method and GIS technology through ArcGIS and Fragstats,based on the MSS images in 1976,TM images in 1989 and 2010,and ETM+ images in 2000,this paper analyzed the changes of land use/cover and landscape pattern in Yumen County from 1976 to 2010.The conclusions are as follows.(1) The trend of LUCC is that the area of farmland increased obviously,and the areas of grassland and glacier decreased.The area of sandy land reduced at first and then expanded.Its area was the smallest in 2000 and increased in 2010.The major patterns of land use change were the conversions of grassland and Gobi to farmland,farmland to construction land,and grassland to Gobi.Land use change underwent a process of slow change—tremendous change—obvious change.(2) Landscape change was also obvious in the decades.Totally,landscape density increased,the largest path index expanded at first and then decreased,the weight area index increased and the shape of landscape became irregular.The shortest distances decreased,and the patch became more complex.Diversity of landscape and the Interspersion Juxtaposition Index decreased at first and then increased.The degree of diversity landscape and fragmentation increase also shows that the land uses became more complex.(3) Driving force analysis shows that the agricultural population growth and economic development are the most direct driving force of land use/cover changes in Yumen City.Climatic factors and policy factors have also affected land use change in the study area.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 6
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