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.

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.

Impacts of regional land-use patterns on ecosystem services in the typical agro-pastoral ecotone of northern China

A comprehensive understanding of the spatial-temporal evolution and driving forces on ecosystem services(ES)is essential for the agro-pastoral ecotone’s ecological security in northern China.However,the land-use pattern(LULC)agglomeration with spatial differentiation in the pastoral and agricultural areas has been rarely concerned.Taking distinct LULC(1980-2018)in Chifeng as an example,we compared four crucial categories of ESs with InVEST.Using SEM,we further contrasted the effects of several variables on regional ES variations in pastoral-dominated(North)and agriculture-dominated(South)regions,respectively.Results revealed the conversion between forest and grassland oriented the LULC transformation in the North.In contrast,human-activitiy-oriented land tended to occupy environmentally sensitive places in the South.Similar ES variations were supplied with the North outperforming the South when soil conservation was omitted.As for the impacts of regional ES variations,the natural and LULC policies both showed positive effects,whereas the anthropogenic factors showed positive in the North,which was negative in the South.Therefore,the ecologicallymaintained-dominant and ecologically-restored-dominant strategies should be separately adopted in the North and South.Our study provided appropriate regional ecological management suggestions for balancing the LULC-driven conflicts between ecological protection and regional development.

滩涂围垦土地利用方式演进的文化阐释及其对海洋型城市设计启示——以浙江省为例

沿海滩涂围垦土地利用方式随着时代进步而不断变化,历经了海盐晒场、海水养殖、农业用地、村庄与工业用地,直至现今的海洋型滨海新城建设用地。滩涂围垦土地利用方式的每一次转换,都蕴含着围垦理念与技术、土地利用时代需求与社会经济效应等丰富内涵。系统梳理浙江沿海滩涂围垦土地利用方式的文化涵义、文化价值等,既可丰富浙江海洋文化理论,又可为当代海洋经济建设,尤其是海洋型城市规划设计提供地方性特色文化理论支撑。