Spatio-temporal change analysis of land cover in Xichang City based on RS and GIS

Abstract

The temporal and spatial change of land cover in Xichang City from 2002 to 2018 was analyzed in this paper. The current land cover maps of three different years were extracted based on the 2002, 2010 and 2018 Landsat remote sensing images, and the transfer Matrix model wasutilized to analyze the transformation among types of land. The results showed that from 2002 to 2018, the area of cultivated land and construction land in Xichang increased by 20.26% and 191.71% respectively, while the areas of forest land, unused land, grassland and water decreased by 9.36%, 83.27%, 4.48% and 10.45%, respectively. In terms of spatial pattern, the regions with obvious changes are mainly located around the Anning River Valley and Qionghai Lake. The construction land increased significantly, mainly along the Beijing-Kunming expressway to the north of the new urban area and the cultivated land distribution increased slightly on the slope of some low mountain fallow land. Land cover conversion is quite frequent between cultivated land, forestland and grassland. This study can provide a scientific basis for the sustainable utilization of land resources and ecological construction in Xichang city.