Analysis of land use dynamics and landscape pattern change in the Huai river basin, China

This study presented the analyses of temporal and spatial change of land use dynamics and landscape pattern in the Huai river basin during the period 1986-2005 by using the land use dynamic degree model, the land use centroids and the landscape metrics; and discussed the driving forces of land use change over the period employed the gray relational analysis method. The main results showed that: firstly, the dominant land use was the farmland, including the upland field and the paddy field, represented 53.43% and 17.85% of the basin area, respectively. The built-up land took the third place and the followings were forest land, water, grass land and unused land, respectively. In addition, the temporal and spatial change of land use was relatively stable, but the rate of land use change had a tendency to ascend and there were an appropriate displacement of land use centroids, which ranged from 2.81 to 52.17 km. Besides, the landscape patch shape tended to be more regular and the landscape heterogeneity and the landscape structure complexity kept on decreasing and the aggregation level of landscape spatial patterns was increasing at the landscape-level. Meanwhile, at the class-level, the landscape patterns of the upland field and the paddy field tended to be anti-fragmentation and their patch shape became more regular, while the patch shape of the other land use became more complex. Finally, the main reason for the land use change in the Huai river basin during 1986-2005 was the faster regional socio-economic development, rather than the climate change.