Spatio-temporal evolution of ecologically-sustainable land use in China's Loess Plateau and detection of its influencing factors

Ecological land(Eco-land) is a basic resource for human beings to survive, and eco-land use is a strategy, a way to manage the land resource. So, ecologically-sustainable land use is essential for human beings to survive. This paper investigates the spatiotemporal characteristics and mechanisms of urban-rural eco-land using a new and innovative integration way based on eco-land change data in China's Loess Plateau(LP) prefecture level cities and explores factors of eco-land change. The spatial difference characteristic of eco-land among different level cities in the LP is that: small cities > big cities > middle cities. From 2009 to 2016, the eco-land in the LP from the perspective of urban-rural areas has changed significantly. Significant differences of urban-rural eco-land were identified among various urban growth types, and all the cities in the LP were further classified into four types based on eco-land change trend, with type A and B cities identified as the vital zone and major zone. Taking the eco-fragile region Loess Plateau(LP) as an example, our results demonstrated that the migrants to cities in LP could relieve ecological pressures and promote restoration of ecological vegetation. We have demonstrated that urbanization and the influence of government policy can be discerned through the quantification of the spatial-temporal change of eco-land and suggest that combining both urban and rural eco-land can support more effective land use decisions and provide theoretical basis for the practical application of urban planning, policy-making and sustainable development. What's more, governments should strive to population mobility and restore vegetation to sustain this fragile ecological environment.

Analysis of Characteristics of Spatio-temporal Evolution of Land Use in Inhabited Islands of Pearl River Estuary

Under the support of the remote sensing and geographical information system(GIS) techniques,we acquire the land use data in 1990 and 2008 regarding 6 inhabited islands,namely Longxue Island,Hengmen Island,Weiyuan Island,Qi'ao Island,Hengqin Island and Gaolan Island in Pearl River Estuary.By using dynamic degree of land use,land use change intensity,relative change rate and other indicators,we conduct quantitative description,and thus quantitatively and qualitatively analyse characteristics of temporal evolution and law of spatial pattern change concerning land use of each island.The study indicates that in the period 1990-2008,the area of construction land and water in 6 islands increased,while the area of agricultural land and unused land increased in some islands and decreased in others.The land use change shows spatial disparity;the holistic land use change degree in Hengmen Island is higher than that of other islands;the dynamic degree of land use,intensity of land use,and relative change rate differ in different islands.

Spatiotemporal Evolution of Urban Land Uses in Modern Urbanization of China

Taking social statistic data as basic data,this paper extended the meaning of urban land uses,highlighted the meaning of urban land uses in modern urbanization,which includes direct,indirect and induced land uses,quantitatively simulated the indirect and induced land uses by the substitution method of agricultural consumption and urban carbon emission and then,analyzed the spatiotemporal evolution of urban land uses in China during 1952–2005 by spatial analysis tool of Geographic Information System. The results indicate that the area of urban land use in China had been increasing since 1952,showing an inversed pyramid structure,i.e.,the direct<the indirect<the induced. Specifically,Chinese urban land use has changed from concentrated distribution in Northwest China to balanced spatial distribution,and the eastern coastal area is under great pressure. Moreover,the northeastern region has moved into the induced dominant stage,while the western region remains at the indirect dominant stage. Finally,it is proposed that in order to guarantee the future demand of urban land use in China,ensuring the induced land use in the eastern region should be taken as a priority goal of Chinese developing policy.

Productive functional evolution of rural settlements:analysis of livelihood strategy and land use transition in eastern China

In China, rural settlements are usually multifunctional complex of natural societies and they also play important productive function. This study explored the spatiotemporal evolution of the productive function of three rural settlements, i.e.,Hetaoyuan, Dawengshan, and Gaoqiao, in the Yimeng Mountain in Shandong province of eastern China.Residents lived in this three types of rural settlements were all involved in agricultural production(i.e., grain threshing, drying and storage), which had remained dominant in Hetaoyuan. Dawengshan became an industrial-oriented settlement, while Gaoqiao became a commercial-oriented settlement. This evolution was reflected in the livelihood strategy changes of rural households and the transition of rural settlements changes. The choice of livelihood strategy was affected by the livelihood assets and policies, which resulted in the spatiotemporal evolution of the productive function of rural settlements. This study can provide references for the implementation and adjustment of rural residential land consolidation policies and the improvement of production and the quality of rural life in future.

Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Changes of Land Usein Xuzhou City Based on Remote Sensing

Based on the satellite remote sensing TM/ETM images of Xuzhou city, basic data about land use of the city from 1994 to 2000 are obtained with the neural network classification module of PCI software, and the dynamic con- version matrix of land use is thus calculated. The areas of construction land and water body have increased by 1833.93 hm2 and 804.87 hm2, respectively. On the contrary, the area of cropland has decreased by 3207.24 hm2. The area of cropland converted into construction land makes up 26.84%, and that converted into water body amounts for 8.17% of the total area of cropland in 1994. The variation index of land use degree and the dynamic degree index of land use computed are 1.38 and 57.81%, respectively, which demonstrate that land use in Xuzhou is in a development period and the changes are drastic. The frequency index and importance index of the form in which cropland converted into con- struction land are 29.91% and 68.93% respectively. The results indicate that the change is not only widespread in space but a major form of spatial change of land use in the area.

Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Land Use in the Bouba Ndjidda National Park and Its Adjacent Zone (North Cameroun)

We evaluated the dynamics of land use in the Bouba Ndjidda National Park (BNNP) and adjacent areas, in northern Cameroon. Using a maximum likelihood supervised classification of satellite images from 1990 to 2016, coupled with field and a socio-economic survey, we performed a robust land-use classification. Between 1990 and 2016, the area included eight classes of land use, with the largest in 1990 being the woody savannah (42.9%) followed by the gallery forest (20.2%) and the clear forest (16.3%). Between 1990 and 1999, the gallery forest lost 64.8% of its area mostly to the benefit of woody savannahs. Between 1999 and 2016, the largest loss of area was that of the clear forest, which decreased generally by 43.2% in favor of woody savannah. Rates of increase of crop field areas were 59.6% and 78.8% respectively for the periods of 1990 to 1999 and 1999 to 2016 to the detriment of woody savannahs. We attribute the changes in land use observed mainly to the increasing human population and associated agriculture, overgrazing, fuelwood harvesting and bush fires. The exploitation of non-timber forest products and climatic factors may also have changed the vegetation cover. We recommend the implementation of farming techniques with low impact on the environment such as agroforestry.

Land Use Evolution of Rural Settlements Based on Landscape Ecology and Analysis of Its Influence Factors: A Case Study of Panshi City, Jilin City of China

GIS spatial analysis and quantitative analysis of landscape indexes were applied to analyze land use features and influence factors of rural settlements in Panshi City, Jilin Province in view of the comprehensive regional environment. The results showed that (A) Rural settlements are mostly scattered, and concentrated in small groups, showing the co-existence and disorderly expansion of modern and traditional development features; (B) Layouts of rural settlements are closely related to agricultural production; (C) Rural settlements are mostly distributed in the linear patterns along rivers and in the ring patterns around reservoirs; (D) Distribution of rural settlements gradually expands to the neighboring areas of traffic arteries. Against the macro background of urbanization, studying the intensive utilization of rural settlements is a fundamental approach of relieving restriction of land elements, and also an important approach of promoting the construction of new socialist countryside, optimizing industrial structure and accelerating regional urbanization.

Analysis on the Spatio-Temporal Changes of Sustainable Land Use in Tibet

By constructing evaluation indicator system of sustainable land use of Tibet from three aspects of ecological environment, economic development, resources and social advancement, this article studies the following contents respectively in two dimensions of time and space： the changes of sustainable land use of Tibet in recent 20 years and spatial characteristics of sustainable land use of Tibet in 2002. The following conclusions can be drawn from evaluation results .① With regard to com- prehensive evaluation value of sustainable land use, the trend of Tibet sustainable land use evaluation values from 1983 to 2002 are very close to the comprehensive evaluation values of ecological environment, which is up trend; ② sustainable utilization degree of land use in eastern region of Tibet is much higher than that of western region. ③ the sustainable land use evaluation value of Nyingtri County is the highest, and the counties with relatively higher land sustainable use values include Lhasa, Lhoka, Chamdo. While Nakchu, Ngari, Shigatse counties have the relatively lower evaluation values; ④ By analyzing each evaluation indicator＇s weight on sustainable land use, it can be concluded that the key limiting factors of sustainable Tibet land resource utilization are land desertification, grassland degradation and low economic level.

Spatial-temporal Evolution Analysis on Land Use Multifunctionality in the China-Vietnam Border Area

Exploring the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of the border land use multifunctionality(LUMF)provides insights for taking advantage of border land use and optimizing border land use policies.Based on the improved Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution(TOPSIS)mode,this study identifies and evaluates the LUMFs in the China-Vietnam border area between 2000 and 2018 from the perspectives of agricultural production,social security,ecological service,landscape recreation,and national security.The results show that:1)The comprehensive land use functions in most counties and cities continued to be improved.2)The comprehensive land use function exhibits remarkable spatial divergence and aggregation characteristics.The high-value area of the agricultural production function and social security function evolves from the east to the west.In addition,the spatial evolution of ecological service function is complicated,without an obvious spatial divergence and aggregation pattern.The landscape recreation function shows different spatial differentiation characteristics in the early and middle stage,and forms a large cluster in the later stage.Finally,the spatial evolution pattern of the national security function is significant.3)Designing differentiated border land policies,improving border land use security,and establishing a long-term mechanism for ecological protection and ecological compensation can aid in optimizing the LUMF level in the border area.

Study on the Landscape and Eco-environment Evolution of Beijing City,China

On the basis of MSS and TM remote sensing data of 5 study periods during 1975-2002 as well as geographic data of Beijing City,evolution laws of landscape components and corresponding changes of the ecological environment are discussed through image processing and GIS analysis.The results show that structure of landscape eco-component changes greatly during the 27 study years,natural landscape components slightly increase,semi-natural landscape components drastically decline,humanistic landscape components increase fast and are mainly transformed from semi-landscape components,that is to say,urban construction land occupies a great number of farmland,and human interventions are serious;moreover,transformation among landscape components is also frequent in all study periods,semi-natural landscape components witness the largest transformation ratio,so semi-natural landscape components are a kind of relatively instable one in Beijing.In terms of eco-environment,natural landscape components within the city increase which is specifically demonstrated as increase of water,urban green space and vegetation coverage;compared with the data in 1975,it is obvious that eco-environment quality of Beijing is gradually improving,and urban environment quality also promoted.

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.

The Spatio-temporal Evolution of Ecological Risk and Its Drivers in the Weihe River Basin Landscape from 1990 to 2020

The Weihe River Basin has a significant number of tributaries and a delicate ecological environment.Understanding the spatial and temporal evolution and determinants of landscape ecological risk in the Weihe River Basin(WRB)can improve the scientific protection and development of its watershed ecosystems.This study is based on land use statistics from the WRB for a 30-year period represented by 1990,2000,2010,and 2020.An initial model for the assessment of landscaping ecological hazards was created using the software that was also used to generate the landscape ecological risk index,such as ArcGIS 10.4 and Fragstats 4.2-64.Next,the spatial and temporal evolution of landscape ecological risk in the vicinity of the study area was characterized by the trajectory of the center of gravity migration and the spatial autocorrelation of GeoDa.Finally,Geodetector was used to analyze ecological risk drivers in the landscapes.According to the findings,the high-risk and relatively high-risk regions are steadily expanding,while the low-risk and relatively low-risk areas dominate the ecological risk landscape in the WRB.Within the Weihe River Basin,Xianyang and Xi'an are the areas to which the high-risk centers of gravity are migrating.Positive spatial correlations were found between the landscape ecological hazards in the study area,most prominently in the form of high-high and low-low aggregations.The primary drivers are the interplay between the GDP component,temperature,and elevation as a single factor.

Land use change in Bohai Rim: a spatial-temporal analysis

Based on RS and GIS methods, land use information for 1985 and 1995 was acquired from TM images and analyzed. Then on both spatial and temporal aspects, this paper analyzes land use change in three provinces of Hebei, Shandong and Liaoning and two municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin in the Bohai Rim covering the period of 1985 to 1995. The extent, rate, areal difference and trend of various types of land use changes in the region, as well as spatial changes of major types of land use, their distribution characteristics and regional orientation are revealed. The regional characteristics of land use are elaborated, so as to provide effective policy support for sustainable land use in the area around the Bohai Bay.

Impacts of land use change on landscape patterns in mountain human settlement:The case study of Hantai District(Shaanxi,China)

Mountain area is an important geographical unit of land,and its ecology is sensitive and fragile.Over the past few decades,human activities have caused dramatic changes in land use in mountainous areas,which caused changes in landscape patterns and impacts on the ecological environment.It is unknown how the mechanism of land use affects the landscape pattern at different scales.The Hantai District,a typical human settlement in the mountain area in Shaanxi,China,was chosen as the study area.Based on the remote sensing images,the mathematical models and landscape indexes were adopted to evaluate the impact of land use change from 1998 to 2017 on the landscape pattern at different scales,and its main driving forces were analyzed.The results showed that the urbanized land expanded largest from 15.39%to 24.30%,and cultivated land experienced the largest decline from 43.54%to 35.35%.Changes in land use have made the patch morphology of most land types developed from a natural random to a sawtooth shape,and its spatial pattern evolved from a ruleset to a fragmented expansion.This reflects the continuous strengthening of human intervention in the process of regional development.Under the jurisdiction of Hantai District,the biggest change in landscape pattern is in Hanzhong City and Qili Town.The improved economy and increasing population and urbanization rate were the main factors that cause these changes.This research could provide necessary information for understanding the evolution mechanism of land resources in mountainous human settlements for mountainous areas with significant geomorphic differentiation.

Spatio-temporal distribution of vegetation index and its influencing factors——a case study of the Jiaozhou Bay, China

The coastal zone is an area characterized by intense interaction between land and sea, high sensitivity to regional environmental changes, and concentrated human activities. Little research has investigated vegetation cover changes in coastal zones resulting from climate change and land-use change, with a lack of knowledge about the driving mechanism. Normalized diff erence vegetation index(NDVI) can be used as an indicator for change of the coastal environment. In this study, we analyzed the interannual changes and spatial distribution of NDVI in the coastal zone around Jiaozhou Bay in Qingdao, a coastal city undergoing rapid urbanization in northeast China. The underlying causes of NDVI variations were discussed in the context of climate change and land-use change. Results showed that the spatio-temporal distribution of NDVI displayed high spatial variability in the study area and showed a typical trend of gradually increasing from coastal to inland regions. The significant increase area of NDVI was mainly found in newly added construction land, extending along the coastline towards the inland. Land vegetation cover demonstrated a certain response relationship to sea-land climate change and land-based activities. The impact of land-based human activities was slightly greater than that of sea-land climate change for land vegetation cover. The results indicate that promoting ecological policies can build an ecological security framework of vegetation suitable for the resource characteristics of coastal cities. The framework will buf fer the negative ef fects of sea-land climate change and land-based human activities on vegetation cover and thereby achieve the balance of regional development and ecological benefits in the coastal zone.

Historical evolution of gully erosion and its response to land use change during 1968–2018 in the Mollisol region of Northeast China

Gully erosion is one of the most severe types of land degradation,hindering food production and sustainable agricultural development.However,the historical evolution process and the impact of land use change on gully erosion remain unclear.To address this issue,we conducted a field investigation on gully erosion in 2018 and interpreted land use and gullies using historical remote sensing images in 1968 and 1978 over an area of 84.48 km^(2).The study found that from 1968 to 1978 to 2018,all gully morphological parameters including gully length density and gully areal density increased significantly.The main origin of gully erosion found was from dry farmland.The annual soil loss rate induced by gully erosion was 1.46 mm during 1968–2018.Gully erosion rates were higher during 1968–1978 than during 1978–2018.Furthermore,the length,areal and volumetric erosion rates in gullies formed by multiple gullies merging was greater than that of newly formed gullies(NFG)and gullies developing continuously from a single pre-existing gully,while the widening rate of NFG was highest.The susceptibility of land use types to gully erosion was in the order of woodland<dry farmland<degraded land.The annual average increase in gully area was 871.09 m^(2) km^(-2) year^(-1) for parcels that were converted from woodland to dry farmland,which was 5.56 times and 1.78 times greater than that of woodland and dry farmland maintenance,respectively.Therefore,urgent implementation of ecological land use plans and gully erosion control practices is suggested for this region.

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Land Use Land Cover Mapping and Change Detection in Dambatta Local Government Area

This research studied the spatiotemporal changes in land use(LU)/land cover(LC)in Dambatta local government area,with a view to identifying the effect arising from the observable changes in land use patterns.The imageries used in the study were obtained from the National Space Research and Development Agency(NARSDA),Abuja.Spatial analytical techniques and descriptive statistical techniques were employed to analyze the data.The results showed 66.8%reduction in agricultural lands,45.5%reduction in vegetation cover,223.2%increase in built-up areas,269.1%increase in bare lands and 70%increase in water bodies within the 20 years.Spatio-temporal analysis of the three imageries revealed that agricultural lands were largely been taken over by urbanization while vegetation had rapidly given way to bare lands within the 20 years.It was observed that these changes resulted from anthropogenic activities,environmental factors and climate change.These result in the loss of farmlands,inadequate food supply,unemployment,inadequate industrial raw materials,reduction in revenue generated,forest depletion,desertification,wildlife extinction and temperature increase.While it is recommended that reforestation,land reclamation and irrigation agriculture should be promoted in the area,it is also suggested that further research should focus on the impact of climate change on land cover change in the area.

Modeling the spatio-temporal changes in land uses and its impacts on ecosystem services in Northeast China over 2000–2050

Land use and its dynamics have attracted considerable scientific attention for their significant ecological and socioeconomic implications.Many studies have investigated the past changes in land use,but efforts exploring the potential changes in land use and implications under future scenarios are still lacking.Here we simulate the future land use changes and their impacts on ecosystem services in Northeast China(NEC) over the period of 2000–2050 using the CLUE–S(Conversion of Land Use and its Effects at Small regional extent) model under the scenarios of ecological security(ESS),food security(FSS) and comprehensive development(CDS).The model was validated against remote sensing data in 2005.Overall,the accuracy of the CLUE–S model was evaluated at 82.5%.Obtained results show that future cropland changes mainly occur in the Songnen Plain and the Liaohe Plain,forest and grassland changes are concentrated in the southern Lesser Khingan Mountains and the western Changbai Mountains,while the Sanjiang Plain will witness major changes of the wetlands.Our results also show that even though CDS is defined based on the goals of the regional development plan,the ecological service value(ESV) under CDS is RMB 2656.18 billion in 2050.The ESV of CDS is lower compared with the other scenarios.Thus,CDS is not an optimum scenario for eco-environmental protection,especially for the wetlands,which should be given higher priority for future development.The issue of coordination is also critical in future development.The results can help to assist structural adjustments for agriculture and to guide policy interventions in NEC.

Evolution Characteristics of Urban Land Use Efficiency under Environmental Constraints in China

In the context of high-quality economic development and coordinated regional development,this paper measures the urban land use efficiency of 275 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2016,taking into account the unexpected output(environmental pollution),and explores the temporal and spatial evolution of urban land use efficiency through kernel density estimation and spatial autocorrelation analysis.The results show that:(1)From 2003 to 2016,China’s urban land use efficiency showed an overall fluctuating growth,but it remained at a low level.The mean value of urban land use efficiency has been gradually decreasing in east,west and central regions.(2)In the whole country and the eastern,central and western regions,the regional differences have been increasing,and the efficiency values of the whole country and the east have become polarized.(3)Urban land use efficiency shows a weak spatial positive correlation,but the degree of spatial agglomeration is increasing.High-high agglomeration areas are mostly distributed in the southeastern coastal areas,and extend into the central region,while most of the high-low polarized areas are the capital cities of the central and western regions.The low-high depressed areas are scattered around the high-value accumulation areas,some of which have turned into high-high agglomeration areas during the study period,while the low-low homogeneous areas are mainly distributed in the central,western and northeastern regions.Therefore,it is proposed that strengthening the utilization of urban stock land,strengthening the regional cooperation mechanism,and formulating policies which improve the efficiency of land use are effective ways to promote the intensive and economical use of urban land,as well as regional coordinated development.

Landscape Dynamics and Driving Factors in Da’an County of Jilin Province in Northeast China During 1956-2000

The landscape pattern of Da’an County, Northeast China has undergone significant changes since the 1950s as a result of climatic change and human activities. The aim of this paper is to quantitatively study landscape pattern and its spatial dynamics of Da’an County at the landscape level over the nearly 50-year span. Patch dynamics were examined ac-cording to land use and land cover change processes built from a series of images, as well as topographic maps, and tem-poral patterns built from landscape pattern metrics. The transition matrix of landscape patch types and changes of various landscape metrics were applied. The results showed that, from 1956 to 2000, the landscape within the study area had un-dertaken a complicated evolution in landscape structure and composition. The outstanding characteristic is that sa-line-alkali land increased and grassland decreased. As some smaller patches amalgamated, the heterogeneity of patch de-creased. All those changes were the synthetic result of both climatic and anthropogenic influences, but the predominant factor was different in different parts. In the southern part of the study area, the landscape pattern changes resulted from the modification of climate obviously, while in the northern part, the landscape pattern changes were mainly caused by human activities, such as the conversion between farmland and saline-alkali land. This phenomenon showed that human activities played more important role in the north than in the south of Da’an County.