Land-cover changes in an urban lake watershed in a mega-city, Central China

Urbanization can exert a profound influence on land covers and landscape characteristics. In this study, we characterize the impact of urbanization on land cover and lacustrine landscape and their consequences in a large urban lake watershed, Donghu Lake watershed (the largest urban lake in China), Central China, by using Landsat TM satellite images of three periods of 1987, 1993 and 1999 and ground-based information. We grouped the land covers into six categories: water body, vegetable land, forested land, shrub-grass land, open area and urban land, and calculated patch-related landscape indices to analyze the effects of urbanization on landscape features. We overlaid the land cover maps of the three periods to track the land cover change processes. The results indicated that urban land continuously expanded from 9.1% of the total watershed area in 1987, to 19.4% in 1993, and to 29.6% in 1999. The vegetable land increased from 7.0% in 1987, 11.9% in 1993, to 13.9% in 1999 to sustain the demands of vegetable for increased urban population. Concurrently, continuous reduction of other land cover types occurred between 1987 and 1999: water body decreased from 30.4% to 23.8%, and forested land from 33.6% to 24.3%. We found that the expansion of urban land has at least in part caused a decrease in relatively wild habitats, such as urban forest and lake water area. These alterations had resulted in significant negative environmental consequences, including decline of lakes, deterioration of water and air quality, and loss of biodiversity.

Land-cover classification of China: integrated analysis of AVHRR imagery and geophysical data

Over last two decades, numerous studies have used remotely sensed data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensors to map land use and land cover at large spatial scales, but achieved only limited success. In this paper, we employed an approach that combines both AVHRR images and geophysical datasets (e.g. climate, elevation). Three geophysical datasets are used in this study: annual mean temperature, annual precipitation, and elevation. We first divide China into nine bio-climatic regions, using the long-term mean climate data. For each of nine regions, the three geophysical data layers are stacked together with AVHRR data and AVHRR-derived vegetation index (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) data, and the resultant multi-source datasets were then analysed to generate land-cover maps for individual regions, using supervised classification algorithms. The nine land-cover maps for individual regions were assembled together for China. The existing land-cover dataset derived from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) images was used to assess the accuracy of the classification that is based on AVHRR and geophysical data. Accuracy of individual regions varies from 73% to 89%, with an overall accuracy of 81% for China. The results showed that the methodology used in this study is, in general, feasible for large-scale land-cover mapping in China.

Analysis of arable land loss and its impact on rural sustainability in Southern Jiangsu Province of China

Rapid urbanization and industrialization in southern Jiangsu Province have consumed a huge amount of arable land. Through comparative analysis of land cover maps derived from TM images in 1990, 2000 and 2006, we identified the trend of arable land loss. It is found that most arable land is lost to urbanization and rural settlements development. Urban settlements, rural settlements, and industrial park-mine-transport land increased, respectively, by 87 997 ha (174.65%), 81 041 ha (104.52%), and 12 692 ha (397.99%) from 1990 to 2006. Most of the source (e.g., change from) land covers are rice paddy fields and dryland. These two covers contributed to newly urbanized areas by 37.12% and 73.52% during 1990-2000, and 46.39% and 38.86% during 2000-2006. However, the loss of arable land is weakly correlated with ecological service value, per capita net income of farmers, but positively with grain yield for some counties. Most areas in the study site have a low arable land depletion rate and a high potential for sustainable development. More attention should be directed at those counties that have a high depletion rate but a low potential for sustainable development. Rural settlements should be controlled and rationalized through legislative measures to achieve harmonious development between urban and rural areas, and sustainable development for rural areas with a minimal impact on the ecoenvironment. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

退耕还林(草)和降雨变化对延河流域土壤侵蚀的影响

通过定量评估退耕还林(草)和降雨变化对延河流域土壤侵蚀的影响,为延河流域水土保持效益评价、流失治理和环境建设提供决策参考。【方法】利用延河流域日降雨、数字高程模型、土壤类型图、土地利用图和植被覆盖图,运用RUSLE模型,在ArcGIS平台的支持下计算流域1997年和2000年土壤侵蚀量,并分别模拟了退耕还林(草)和气候变化对土壤侵蚀的影响。【结果】由于降雨的变化,研究区年降雨侵蚀力均值由1997年的775.32MJ·mm·hm-2·h-1·a-1增加到了2000年的1292.07MJ·mm·hm-2·h-1·a-1,降雨大大加剧了流域土壤侵蚀;由于退耕还林(草)政策的实施,坡耕地面积大大减少,林草面积增加,植被覆盖和管理因子值显著减少,由退耕还林(草)前的0.1714下降到了退耕还林(草)后0.1592,减小了流域土壤侵蚀;由于退耕还林(草)的实施、气候变化以及水土保持工程措施和耕作措施变化共同影响,单位面积平均土壤侵蚀量由退耕还林(草)前的3012t·km-2·a-1增加到了退耕还林(草)后4671t·km-2·a-1,年土壤侵蚀总量2314×104t增加到了3589×104t。【结论】降雨变化使得...