Abstract
Uncovering magnitude, trend, and spatial pattern of land cover/land use changes (LCLUC) is crucial for understanding mechanisms of LCLUC and assisting land use planning and conservation. China has been undergoing unprecedented economic growth, massive rural-to-urban migration, and large-scale policy-driven ecological restoration, and therefore encountering enormous LCLUC in recent decades. However, comprehensive understandings of spatiotemporal LCLUC dynamics and underlying mechanisms are still lacking. Based on classification of annual LCLU maps from MODIS satellite imagery, we proposed a land change detection method to capture significant land change hotspots over Northern China during 2001–2013, and further analyzed temporal trends and spatial patterns of LCLUC. We found rapid decline of agricultural land near urban was predominantly caused by urban expansion. The process was especially strong in North China Plain with 14,057 km2 of urban gain and −21,017 km2 of agricultural land loss. To offset the loss of agricultural land, Northeast China Plain and Xinjiang were reclaimed. Substantial recovery of forests (49,908 km2) and closed shrubland (60,854 km2) occurred in mountainous regions due to abandoned infertile farmland, secondary succession, and governmental conservation policies. The spatial patterns and trends of LCLUC in Northern China provide information to support effective environmental policies towards sustainable development.
Highlights
IntroductionSignificant land change hotspots were detected by means of linear regression to fit slopes of land cover time series at the municipality scale[21]
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series[20]
We explored the land change spatial patterns and tested the following hypotheses to answer the question of “where” and “how” LCLUC were occurring in Northern China: (1) urban expansion has pressured limited land resources around the coastal and provincial cities with the loss of fertile arable land, (2) new farmland has been reclaimed to meet the needs, and (3) forest recovery has occurred around the rural mountain areas due to the polices of conservation and the abandonment of farmland
Summary
Significant land change hotspots were detected by means of linear regression to fit slopes of land cover time series at the municipality scale[21]. It is important to develop a land change detection method to explore spatial patterns of LCLUC and to quantify the rates and magnitudes of land change. We explored the land change spatial patterns and tested the following hypotheses to answer the question of “where” and “how” LCLUC were occurring in Northern China: (1) urban expansion has pressured limited land resources around the coastal and provincial cities with the loss of fertile arable land, (2) new farmland has been reclaimed to meet the needs, and (3) forest recovery has occurred around the rural mountain areas due to the polices of conservation and the abandonment of farmland
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