Abstract
Analyzing spatiotemporal changes in land use and land cover could provide basic information for appropriate decision-making and thereby plays an essential role in promoting the sustainable use of land resources, especially in ecologically fragile regions. In this paper, a case study was taken in Zhenlai County, which is a part of the farming-pastoral ecotone of Northern China. This study integrated methods of bitemporal change detection and temporal trajectory analysis to trace the paths of land cover change for every location in the study area from 1954 to 2005, using published land cover data based on topographic and environmental background maps and also remotely sensed images including Landsat MSS (Multispectral Scanner) and TM (Thematic Mapper). Meanwhile, the Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient derived from economic models were also used to study the land use structure changes to gain a better understanding of human impact on this fragile ecosystem. Results of bitemporal change detection showed that the most common land cover transition in the study area was an expansion of arable land at the expense of grassland and wetland. Plenty of grassland was converted to other unused land, indicating serious environmental degradation in Zhenlai County during the past decades. Trajectory analysis of land use and land cover change demonstrated that settlement, arable land, and water bodies were relatively stable in terms of coverage and spatial distribution, while grassland, wetland, and forest land had weak stability. Natural forces were still dominating the environmental processes of the study area, while human-induced changes also played an important role in environmental change. In addition, different types of land use displayed different concentration trends and had large changes during the study period. Arable land was the most decentralized, whereas forest land was the most concentrated. The above results not only revealed notable spatiotemporal features of land use and land cover change in the time series, but also confirmed the applicability and effectiveness of the methodology in our research, which combined bitemporal change detection, temporal trajectory analysis, and a Lorenz curve/Gini coefficient in analyzing spatiotemporal changes in land use and land cover.
Highlights
Decadal to centennial land use and land cover change (LUCC) has been widely singled out as an integral component and important driver of global environmental change [1,2,3,4]
This study integrated methods of bitemporal change detection and temporal trajectory analysis to trace the paths of land cover change for every location, and to identify the stability of land-use conversion and human-induced environmental change
Spatial distribution structures of different land use types were analyzed by using the Lorenz curve and associated Gini coefficient
Summary
Decadal to centennial land use and land cover change (LUCC) has been widely singled out as an integral component and important driver of global environmental change [1,2,3,4]. Zhenlai County, as a part of the farming-pastoral ecotone of Northern China, is located in northwestern Jilin province, where the eco-environment is very fragile and is vulnerable to disturbance from various factors This area was widely covered by grassland before the 1950s, when its eco-environment was relatively stable. It is reported that the irrational land use structure has led to low and unstable yields of arable land, and the severe land degradation has meant people in some towns have poor living conditions [16] In this context, the study of spatiotemporal changes and land use structure changes over the past decades in Zhenlai County has become a significant topic
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