Abstract
This paper outlines land-use/landscape pattern changes and relationships between land-use change trajectories and environmental variables in the Dong ethnic-minority village of Gaoyou in southwestern China. In the study, landscape metrics were applied to evaluate changes in land use and landscape patterns using GeoEye-1 satellite imagery for 2009/2020 and drone imagery for 2019, and redundancy analysis (RDA) was applied to clarify the relationship between land-use change trajectories and environmental variables. The 10–30% change in land use observed across each time sequence indicated rapid development in the area, resulting in increased fragmentation and reduced aggregation. The findings showed efficient usage of land resources in Gaoyou. Accessibility to land tended to govern the characteristics of land-use change, with natural variables influencing the type of development. The results also indicated that farmers responded quickly to government subsidies promoting tea and camellia plantations, unplanned road construction was causing fragmentation, and official land-use map content differed from the authors’ observations. Accordingly, the government should make integrated long-term plans for the development of ethnic-minority villages and engage in remote-sensor monitoring of local land-use change.
Highlights
IntroductionLand is a spatial base for anthropogenic activities that provide natural resources such as food, plant matter, water and shelter to fulfil human needs [1]
Research on land-use change in China has attracted much interest, while accelerated urbanization has brought about urban growth and cropland loss in China [6–8]
Previous studies have concluded that land-use types and intensities are related to landscape structure, function and processes [12], and that landscape changes are most likely to be observed from changes in land use [13,14]
Summary
Land is a spatial base for anthropogenic activities that provide natural resources such as food, plant matter, water and shelter to fulfil human needs [1]. Against this background, the Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) scientific research program put forward under the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) in 1993 prompted a rapid upward trend in research on land-use change [2,3]. The authors concluded that further research on the driving forces behind landscape change may shed light on how to address related challenges [16]. Systematic analysis of local-scale land-use change studies can shed light on finding the general principles that can explain current land-use change and predict future land use systems [17]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
