Land use and land cover change in Liaocheng Prefecture of China

Liaocheng Prefecture is located in North China Plain with a long reclamation history of more than 10000 years. In this study the author applied data to explain the relationship between land use pattern and physical, social and economic factors and further to find out driving forces which lead to land use changes in such an agricultural region. Data of three different time points on township level were taken into account to explain the land use pattern, and land use changes. And 40-year county level data were applied to analyze the driving forces. Canonical Correlation Analysis was conducted to explain the relationship between land use pattern and social and economic factors; and Linear Regression Analysis was used to find out driving forces of land use change, thus to project the future trend of land use change in Liaocheng Prefecture.