Landscape Pattern Evolution and Ecological Protection Planning on Simao to Ninger Segment of the Ancient Tea Horse Road

Abstract

There are a large number of cultural and natural landscapes aggregating and emerging in the ancient tea horse road. Accurately grasp the dynamic change process of landscape pattern in the area, and analysis natural and human driving force in the landscape pattern evolution of history heritage corridor ancient tea horse road that play the role, for to formulate ecological protection planning of the historical and cultural heritage corridor have great significance. This paper selects these towns and villages which stand along the typically initial segment of the ancient tea horse road i.e. route of Simao to Ninger that as the research object. It uses 1999,2006 and 2013 Landsat TM and ETM remote sensing images as the basic data, and integrating use of RS, GIS and landscape ecology related theory methods, and analyses the characteristics of the landscape dynamic evolution and driving forces and driving mechanism for 14 years in this research area. The results show that has significant changes landscape pattern in study area from 1999 to 2013. The main conclusions are as follows. From the level of types, reduction amount of the forest area is the most, a reduction of 7%, the fragmentation degree increases. Urban construction land shows an overall growth trend, its area increases significantly, an increase of 22.3%, the degree of aggregation increases, the connectivity of urban construction land strengthens, and the patch shape tends to be simple. The area of grassland and water overall area trends to increase. The area of cultivated land trends to increase. From the level of landscapes, in this study area, landscape patch density continues to decrease, the total number of landscape patches continues to reduce, on the whole, the landscape patch distribution becomes more continuous, tends to fusion between patches. Landscape separation index trends to be rising, distribution of landscape types tends to be complex and discrete, individual patches are sporadic, scattered. The landscape of the Shannon diversity index and Shannon evenness index shows a certain rising trend, the diversity of landscape structure is increasing. The rising of Shannon evenness index shows that the control force of the original landscape that was in dominant position on the whole landscape is declining, and influence of different landscape types on the whole landscape pattern tends to equilibrium. This research focuses on the analysis on the driving factors and driving mechanism of the evolution of landscape pattern in the study area from natural factors and human factors. The result shows that topographic factors, demographic factors, economic factors, industrialization and urbanization factors, economic system and decision making factors affect the change of landscape pattern jointly. Meanwhile, at different spatial scales and time scales, the main driving forces which have influence on the landscape pattern are not the same.