Land use change and landscape response in the Yellow River Delta of China: a case of Dongying City

Abstract

Rapid land use change has taken place in the Yellow River Delta (YRD) of China over the last decade, which is the result of human activities. This paper has analyzed land use changes in Dongying City (located in the modern YRD) over 18 years from 1992 to 2010 based on the combined use of RS and GIS, and further explored the landscape response of these changes. The results show that (1) the maximum annual land use change in the study area has occurred in the period from 2000 to 2010, but did not significantly from 1992 to 2000; (2) the most obvious changes have occurred at the coastal areas and economically developed areas of the study area; (3) in the monitoring period, construction land increased significantly, which came from the surrounding farmland; but farmland remained stable owing to the transition from grassland and unused land covered largely by salt pan and shrimp ponds; and (4) in the monitoring period,the landscape diversity and evenness were decreasing, but the landscape dominance was increasing because of the expansion of artificial types (i.e. built-up land, shrimp ponds and salt pan) and the decreasing landscape dominance of natural types, namely grassland and unused land.