Abstract
The spatiotemporal features of land use changes and the evolution process of landscape pattern from 1980 to 2017 were investigated using historical satellite images from a Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) for 1980, 1990, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2017 in the wetlands of Lake Baiyangdian in the North China Plain (NCP). Landscape pattern indices were used to quantify landscape changes in wetlands, and a redundancy analysis (RDA) was conducted to analyze the driving forces and quantitatively explain the effects of human activities and natural changes on wetland fragmentation. The results showed that the total wetland area was 234.4 km2 in 1980 but it decreased by 8.1% at an average decrease rate of 0.5 km2 per year. The dominant transition between land use types was from natural wetlands to artificial wetlands, and wetland conversion to dry land and residential land. The RDA results suggested that agricultural activities and total population were the main driving factors affecting wetland landscape. Additionally, climate change provided a potentially favorable environment for agricultural development, due to the increased temperatures and decreased wind speeds. Additionally, governmental policy changes and dam construction also played the roles in land use changes.
Highlights
Wetlands are key ecosystems in the global ecological system and carbon pool, and they provide important ecosystem services by mitigating flood damage, improving water quality, regulating the climate, and serving as a natural habitat supporting biodiversity [1,2].Of all ecosystem types, wetlands are being lost at the fastest rate globally, which is a cause for both governmental and public concern [3]
According to the second national wetland survey conducted by China’s State Forestry Administration between 2009 and 2013, which was based on China Brazil Earth Resources Satellite remote sensing and field measurements, wetland area was reduced by 33,963 km2, with a loss rate of 8.82% compared to the first national wetland survey [6]
The results showed that the total wetland area decreased from 234.4 km2 in 1980 to 215.5 km2 in 2017, while the area of natural wetlands decreased by 52.1 km2 and the artificial wetland area increased by 33.2 km2
Summary
Wetlands are being lost at the fastest rate globally, which is a cause for both governmental and public concern [3]. It is evident that there has been a dramatic degradation and loss of wetlands over the past few decades in China [7], and the driving factors of wetland degradation and fragmentation may be related to the continuously changing climate conditions, intensive human disturbance, associated pollution, and human need for water and biological resources [2,6,8,9,10]. The first step in wetland degradation can be determined by identifying changes from uniform conditions to more heterogeneous and patchy conditions, and this is strongly associated with a reduction in wetland function and Sustainability 2021, 13, 9747.
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