Abstract
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.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexander P, Rounsevell MDA, Dislich C, et al. (2015) Drivers for global agricultural land use change: The nexus of diet, population, yield and bioenergy. Glob Environ Change 35: 138–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.08.011
Bai JH, Lu QQ, Wang JJ, et al. (2013) Landscape pattern evolution processes of alpine wetlands and their driving factors in the Zoige Plateau of China. J Mt Sci 10: 54–67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-013-2572-1
Betru T, Tolera M, Sahle K, et al. (2019) Trends and drivers of land use/cover change in Western Ethiopia. Appl Geogr 104(03): 83–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2019.02.007
Campagnaro T, Frate L, Carranza ML, et al. (2017) Multi-scale analysis of alpine landscapes with different intensities of abandonment reveals similar spatial pattern changes: Implications for habitat conservation. Ecol Indic 74: 147–159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.11.017
Chan EHW, Wang A, Lang W (2016) Comprehensive evaluation framework for sustainable land use: Case study of Hong Kong in 2000–2010. J Urban Plan Dev 142(4): 05016007. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)UP.1943-5444.0000346
Corcoran J, Knight J, Gallant A (2013) Influence of multi-source and multi-temporal remotely sensed and ancillary data on the accuracy of random forest classification of wetlands in Northern Minnesota. Remote Sens 5(7): 3212–3238. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs5073212
Demissie F, Yeshitila K, Kindu M, et al. (2017) Land use/Land cover changes and their causes in Libokemkem District of South Gonder, Ethiopia. Remote Sens Appl: Soc Environ 8: 224–230. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2017.10.001
Elagouz MH, Abou-Shleel SM, Belal AA, et al. (2019) Detection of land use/cover change in Egyptian Nile Delta using remote sensing. Egypt J Remote Sens Space Sci. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrs.2018.10.004
Feng YJ, Liu Y, Tong XH (2018) Spatiotemporal variation of landscape patterns and their spatial determinants in Shanghai, China. Ecol Indic 87: 22–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.12.034
Feng YJ, Yang QQ, Tong XH, et al. (2018) Evaluating land ecological security and examining its relationships with driving factors using GIS and generalized addictive model. Sci Total Environ 633: 1469–1479. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.272
Feng YX, Luo GP, Lu L, et al. (2011). Effects of land use change on landscape pattern of the Manas River watershed in Xinjiang, China. Environ Earth Sci 64(8): 2067–2077. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-011-1029-5
Fu, BJ, Chen, LD, Ma, KM, et al. (2011) Principles and applications of landscape ecology. Beijing, China: Science Press. pp 60–68. (In Chinese)
Geospatial Data Cloud. Available online: http://www.gscloud.cn/ (Accessed on 10 March 2019).
Grimm NB, Faeth SH, Golubiewski NE, et al. (2008) Global change and the ecology of cities. Sci 319(5864): 756–760. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1150195
Hreško J, Petrovič F, Mišovičová R, et al. (2015) Mountain landscape archetypes of the Western Carpathians (Slovakia). Biodivers Conserv 24(12): 3269–3283. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-015-0969-6
Kamal H, Fazlul H, Fazlur R (2018) Shrinking greenery: Land use and land cover changes in Kurram Agency, Kohi Safid Mountains of north-western Pakistan. J Mt Sci 15(2): 296–306. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-017-4451-7
Kevin RC (2002) Relative sensitives of mammalian carnivores to habitat fragmentation. Conserv Biol 16(2): 488–502. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1523-1739.2002.00386.x
Klaus H, Jeroen CJM (2006) Changing concepts of land in economic theory: Form single to multi-disciplinary approaches. Ecol Econ 56(1): 5–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.03.033
Kleemann J, Baysal G, Bulley H, et al. (2017) Assessing driving forces of land use and land cover change by a mixed-method approach in north-eastern Ghana, West Africa. J Environ Manage 196(07): 411–442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.01.053
Kroczak R, Fidelus-Orzechowska J, Bucała-Hrabia A, et al. (2018) Land use and land cover changes in small Carpathian catchments between the mid-19th and early 21st centuries and their record on the land surface. J Mt Sci 15(12): 2561–2578. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-018-5095-y
Li JT, Liu YS, Yang YY (2018) Land use change and effect analysis of tideland reclamation in Hangzhou Bay. J Mt Sci 15(2): 394–405. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-017-4542-5
Liu YS (1999) Family Models used in optimal allocation of regional land use. Prog Geogr 18: 26–31 (In Chinese). https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.10076301.1999.01.004
Liu, R, Zhu DL (2010) Methods for detecting land use changes based on the land use transition matrix. Resour Sci 32(08): 1544–1550. (In Chinese). https://doi.org/1007-7588(2010)08-1544-07
Liu X, Li X, Chen Y, et al. (2010) A new landscape index for quantifying urban expansion using multi-temporal remotelysensed data. Landsc Ecol 25: 671–682. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-010-9454-5
Liu JY, Kuang WH, Zhang ZX, et al. (2014) Spatiotemporal characteristics, patterns, and causes of land-use changes in China since the late 1980s. J Geogr Sci 24(2): 195–210. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-014-1082-6
Liu D, Toman E, Fuller Z, et al. (2018) Integration of historical map and aerial imagery to characterize long-term land-use change and landscape dynamics: An object-based analysis via random forests. Ecol Indic 95: 595–605. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.08.004
Luo T, Zhang TH, Wang ZF, et al. (2015) Driving forces of landscape fragmentation due to urban transportation networks: lessons from Fujian, China. J Urban Plan Dev 142(2): 04015013. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)UP.1943-5444.0000292
Luo GP, Zhou CH, Chen X, et al. (2008) A methodology of characterizing status and trend of land changes in oases: A case study of Sangong River watershed, Xinjiang, China. J Environ Manage 18(4): 775–783. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2007.04.003
Matthias B, Anna MH, Nina S (2005) Driving forces of landscape change current and new directions. Landsc Ecol 19(8): 857–868. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-004-0245-8
Mcgarigal K, Marks BJ (1995) Fragstats: Spatial pattern analysis program for quantifying landscape structure. General technical report PNW (USA): 351.
Monica GT (1990) Spatial and temporal analysis of landscape patterns. Landsc Ecol 4(1): 21–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02573948
Olaf B (2000) Landscape classification in Saxony (Germany) — A tool for holistic regional planning. Landsc Urban Plan 50(1):145–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0169-2046(00)00086-4
Picuno P, Cillis G, Statuto D (2019) Investigating the time evolution of a rural landscape: How historical maps may provide environmental information when processed using a GIS. Ecol Eng 139: 105580. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2
Peña-Angulo D, Khorchani M, Errea P, et al. (2019) Factors explaining the diversity of land cover in abandoned fields in a Mediterranean mountain area. Catena 181: 104064. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2019.05.010
Robert G, Pontius J, Emily S, et al. (2004) Detecting important categorical land changes while accounting for persistence. Agric Ecosyst Environ 101(2–3): 251–268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2003.09.008
Ramin N, Abdul BMS, Siva KB, et al. (2015) A GIS-based model to analyze the temporal development pf oil palm land use in Kuala Langat District, Malaysia. Environ Earth Sci 73(4): 1687–1700. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-014-3521-1
Alexander B, Wu JG (2010) Urban heat islands and landscape heterogeneity: linking spatiotemporal variations in surface temperatures to land-cover and socioeconomic patterns. Landsc Ecol 25(1): 17–33. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-009-9402-4
Salvati L, Zambon I, Chelli FM, et al. (2018) Do spatial patterns of urbanization and land consumption reflect different socioeconomic contexts in Europe? Sci Total Environ 625: 722–730. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.12.341
Săvulescu I, Mihai B, Vîrghileanu M, et al. (2019) Mountain arable land abandonment (1968–2018) in the Romanian Carpathians: Environmental conflicts and sustainability issues. Sustain 11: 6679. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11236679
Tischendorf L, Walz U (2014) Understanding and quantifying landscape structure — a review of relevant process characteristics, data models, and landscape metrics. Ecol Model 295: 31–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2014.08.018
Jaarsveld AS, Biggs R, Scholes RJ, et al. (2005) Measuring conditions and trends in ecosystem services at multiple scales: The Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (SAFMA) experience. Philos Trans R Soc B-Biol Sci 360(1454): 425–441. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2004.1594
Wang XL, Bao YH (1999) Study on the methods of land use dynamic change research. Progress in Geography 1: 83–89. (In Chinese)
Wang SS, Yang K, Yuan DH, et al. (2019) Temporal-spatial changes about the landscape pattern of water system and their relationship with food and energy in a mega city in China. Ecol Model 401: 75–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2019.02.010
Weber C (2003) Interaction model application for urban planning. Landsc Urban Plan 63(1): 49–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0169-2046(02)00182-2
Xia LL, Liu RZ, Zao YW (2012) Correlation analysis of landscape pattern and water quality in Baiyangdian Watershed. Procedia Environ Sci 13: 2188–2196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proenv.2012.01.208
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by Natural Science Foundation of China (51378067), the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi (806215594019).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wang, L., Wu, L. & Zhang, W. Impacts of land use change on landscape patterns in mountain human settlement: The case study of Hantai District (Shaanxi, China). J. Mt. Sci. 18, 749–763 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-020-6236-7
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-020-6236-7