Geo-information Tupu Analysis of Land Use Change in Haihe River Basin

[Objective] This study was to provide basis for the scientific management of land use in Haihe River Basin （HRB） through the quantitative exploration of the land use conversion, changes of intensity and spatial distribution in this region. [Method] With the support of remote sensing technology and geographic information technology, the land use maps of the study area in 40 years （1970-2010） were in- terpreted and plotted. Four kinds of tupu, namely, land use change tupu, process tupu, arising tupu and evolution mode tupu were built through the spatial overlay of the land use maps to analyze the change rules of land use patterns. [Result] The conversion of arable land to construction land was the main characteristics of land use changes in HRB for the 40 years; the area of non-stable region accounted for 35% of the total, indicating that the land use changed remarkably, thus, it was nec- essary to strengthen the scientific land management in HRB; the new conversions to all land use patterns were all the lowest in 1980-1990, indicating that land use changed slowly during this period. [Conclusion] The results indicate that, compared with conventional transfer matrix method, geo-information tupu has obvious advantage in analyzing land use changes that it can demonstrate the spatial distribution of interest region, display the multi-dimensional spatial information.

Use of Intensity Analysis to Measure Land Use Changes from 1932 to 2005 in Zhenlai County, Northeast China

Analyzing spatiotemporal dynamics of land use and land cover over time is widely recognized as important to better understand and provide solutions for social, economic, and environmental problems, especially in ecologically fragile region. In this paper, a case study was taken in Zhenlai County, which is a part of farming-pastoral ecotone of Northeast China. This study seeks to use multi-temporal satellite images and other data from various sources to analyze spatiotemporal changes from 1932 to 2005, and applied a quantitative methodology named intensity analysis in the time scale of decades at three levels: time interval, category, and transition. The findings of the case study are as follows: 1) the interval level of intensity analysis revealed that the annual rate of overall change was relatively fast in 1932–1954 and 1954–1976 time intervals. 2) The category level showed that arable land experienced less intensively gains and losses if the overall change was to have been distributed uniformly across the landscape while the gains and losses of forest land, grassland, water, settlement, wetland and other unused land were not consistent and stationary across the four time intervals. 3) The transition level illustrated that arable land expanded at the expense of grassland before 2000 while it gained intensively from wetland from 2000 to 2005. Settlement targets arable land and avoids grassland, water, wetland and other unused land. Besides, the loss of grassland was intensively targeted by arable land, forest land and wetland in the study period while the loss of wetland was targeted by water except for the time interval of 1976–2000. 4) During the early reclamation period, land use change of the study area was mainly affected by the policy, institutional and political factors, followed by the natural disasters.

Carbon Emission of Regional Land Use and Its Decomposition Analysis: Case Study of Nanjing City, China

Through the matching relationship between land use types and carbon emission items, this paper estimated carbon emissions of different land use types in Nanjing City, China and analyzed the influencing factors of carbon emissions by Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index（LMDI） model. The main conclusions are as follows： 1） Total anthropogenic carbon emission of Nanjing increased from 1.22928 ×10^7 t in 2000 to 3.06939 × 10^7 t in 2009, in which the carbon emission of Inhabitation, mining ＆ manufacturing land accounted for 93% of the total. 2） The average land use carbon emission intensity of Nanjing in 2009 was 46.63 t/ha, in which carbon emission intensity of Inhabitation, mining ＆ manufacturing land was the highest（200.52 t/ha）, which was much higher than that of other land use types. 3） The average carbon source intensity in Nanjing was 16 times of the average carbon sink intensity（2.83 t/ha） in 2009, indicating that Nanjing was confronted with serious carbon deficit and huge carbon cycle pressure. 4） Land use area per unit GDP was an inhibitory factor for the increase of carbon emissions, while the other factors were all contributing factors. 5） Carbon emission effect evaluation should be introduced into land use activities to formulate low-carbon land use strategies in regional development.

Prioritization of Sub-Watersheds in Ruparel Watershed, Rajasthan Based on Morphometric and Land Use/Land Cover Analysis Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Watershed prioritization is considered as the most significant aspect in watershed resource management and development program. The present work attempts to prioritize seventeen sub-watersheds in Ruparel watershed of Alwar district of Rajasthan, India. For prioritization of sub-watersheds, morphometric and land use/land cover (LULC) analysis were performed using remote sensing and GIS. Base map of the study area has been derived from SOI toposheet on 1:50,000 scale whereas LULC mapping was done using IRS P6 LISS III data. Standard methods for drainage morphometry have been followed for computing morphometric parameters such as linear and shape for seventeen sub-watersheds and allotted ranks based on their relationship with erodibility and a compound value has been calculated for final ranking. Five main LULC categories were computed and were assigned priority ranks and subsequently a compound parameter was determined for final ranking. Integration of both morphometric and LULC results reveal that SBW5, SBW7, SBW12 and SBW16 are the common sub-watersheds that fall under high priority, SBW3 falls under Medium category and SBW11 comes under low priority. The results of the analysis can be used to identify the sub-watersheds which need immediate restoration and will eventually help in watershed resource management for sustainable development.

Effects of Topography and Land use on Woody Plant Species Composition and Beta Diversity in an Arid Trans-Himalayan Landscape, Nepal

Distribution patterns of plant species are believed to be impacted by small-scale habitat heterogeneity. However, there have been few comparative studies examining how woody vegetation composition and diversity varies with aspects of different orientations in the Trans-Himalayan region at a local scale. Here, we examined the effects of incoming solar radiation on variation in woody species composition and compared the diversity between the northeast- and southwest-facing slopes in a Trans-Himalayan valley of Nepal. We also examined the implicit interactions between slope orientation and land use in determining the compositional variations between the slopes. We selected two pairs of northeast- and southwest-facing slopes where the first pair has a similar land use and differs in exposure only(Pisang site) while the other pair has clear differences in land use in addition to slope exposure(Braka site). In each site, we sampled 72 plots(36 on each slope) in which the presence and absence of woody species, environmental variables, and disturbance were recorded. Correspondence Analysis(CA) results suggested that the woody species composition significantly varied between northeast- and southwest-facing slopes at both sites, and was significantly correlated with measured environmental variables such as radiation index, altitude, and canopy openness. In the Braka site,mean alpha diversity was significantly higher on southwest-facing slopes. In contrast, beta diversity and gamma diversity were greater on northeast-facing slopes at both sites. Our results suggest that topographic variables(e.g., radiation index) affect species composition between the slopes, likely due to their influence on small scale abiotic environmental variables. However, the effects of land use, such as livestock browsing/grazing may interact with the effects of slope exposure, effectively reducing differences in species composition within slopes but enhancing the differences in beta diversity between contrasting slopes in the Braka. We conclude that slope orientation and land use are important factors in structuring the woody species composition and diversity in the arid Trans-Himalayan region. We suggest that both environmental and land use variables should be taken into consideration in future studies on plant community structure along the cultural landscapes.

Relationships Between River Water Quality and Landscape Factors in Haihe River Basin, China: Implications for Environmental Management

River water plays a key role in human health, and in social and economic development, and is often affected by both natural factors and human activities. An in-depth understanding of the role of these factors can help in developing an effective catchment management strategy to protect precious water resources. This study analyzed river water quality, patterns of terrestrial and riparian ecosystems, intensity of agricultural activities, industrial structure, and spatial distribution of pollutant emissions in the Haihe River Basin in China for the year of 2010, identifying the variables that have the greatest impact on river water quality. The area percentage of farmland in study area, the percentage of natural vegetation cover in the 1000-m riparian zone, rural population density, industrial Gross Domestic Product(GDP)/km^2, and industrial amino nitrogen emissions were all significantly correlated with river water quality(P < 0.05). Farming had the largest impact on river water quality, explaining 43.0% of the water quality variance, followed by the coverage of natural vegetation in the 1000-m riparian zone, which explained 36.2% of the water quality variance. Industrial amino nitrogen emissions intensity and rural population density explained 31.6% and 31.4% of the water quality variance, respectively, while industrial GDP/km^2 explained 26.6%. Together, these five indicators explained 67.3% of the total variance in water quality. Consequently, water environmental management of the Haihe River Basin should focus on adjusting agricultural activities, conserving riparian vegetation, and reducing industrial pollutant emissions by optimizing industrial structure. The results demonstrate how human activities drive the spatial pattern changes of river water quality, and they can provide reference for developing land use guidelines and for prioritizing management practices to maintain stream water quality in a large river basin.

Competitive Learning Approach to GIS Based Land Use Suitability Analysis

This paper uses the expected utility under risk hypothesis to develop a new approach to GIS modeling for land use suitability analysis with competitive learning algorithms （CLG-LUSA）. It uses Kohonen＇s Self Organ- ized Maps （SOM） and Linear Vector Quantization （LVQ） among other tools to create comprehensive ordering of high number of options. The model uses decision makers preferred locations and environmental data to construct a manifold of the decision＇s attribute space. Then, decision and uncertainty maps are derived from this manifold. An application example is provided using the selection of suitable environments for coconut development in a mu- nicipality of Cuba. CLG-LUSA model was able to provide accurate visual feedback of key aspects of the decision process, making the methodology suitable for personal or group decision making.

A New Method Based on Association Rules Mining and Geo-filter for Mining Spatial Association Knowledge

Association rule mining methods, as a set of important data mining tools, could be used for mining spatial association rules of spatial data. However, applications of these methods are limited for mining results containing large number of redundant rules. In this paper, a new method named Geo-Filtered Association Rules Mining(GFARM) is proposed to effectively eliminate the redundant rules. An application of GFARM is performed as a case study in which association rules are discovered between building land distribution and potential driving factors in Wuhan, China from 1995 to 2015. Ten sets of regular sampling grids with different sizes are used for detecting the influence of multi-scales on GFARM. Results show that the proposed method can filter 50%–70% of redundant rules. GFARM is also successful in discovering spatial association pattern between building land distribution and driving factors.

Impacts of precipitation variation and soil and water conservation measures on runoff and sediment yield in the Loess Plateau Gully Region, China

The Loess Plateau of China has experienced a lengthy drought and severe soil erosion.Changes in precipitation and land use largely determine the dynamics of runoff and sediment yield in this region. Trend and mutation analyses were performed on hydrological data(1981–2012) from the Yanwachuan watershed in the Loess Plateau Gully Region to study the evolution characteristics of runoff and sediment yield. A time-series contrasting method also was used to evaluate the effects of precipitation and soil and water conservation(SWC) on runoff and sediment yield. Annual sediment yield declined markedly from 1981 to 2012 although there was no significant change in annual precipitation and annual runoff. Change points of annual runoff and annual sediment yield occurred in 1996 and 1997,respectively. Compared with that in the baseline period(1981–1996), annual runoff and annual sediment yield in the change period(1997–2012)decreased by 17.0% and 76.0%, respectively, but annual precipitation increased by 6.3%. Runoff decreased in the flood season and normal season, but increased in the dry season, while sediment yield significantly declined in the whole study period. The SWC measures contributed significantly to the reduction of annual runoff(137.9%) and annual sediment yield(135%) and were more important than precipitation. Biological measures(forestland and grassland) accounted for 61.04% of total runoff reduction, while engineering measures(terraces and dams) accounted for 102.84% of total sediment yield reduction. Furthermore, SWC measures had positive ecological effects. This study provides a scientific basis for soil erosion control on the Loess Plateau.