Evolution and Influencing Factors of Landscape Pattern in the Yellow River Basin (Henan Section) Due to Land Use Changes

• Published in: Water (Basel) 2022-12, Vol.14 (23), p.3872
• Main Authors: Niu, Haipeng, Zhao, Xiaoming, Xiao, Dongyang, Liu, Mengmeng, An, Ran, Fan, Liangxin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cultivated lands; Dependent variables; Distribution; Economic factors; Ecosystem management; Elevation; Environmental aspects; Environmental management; Environmental protection; Evolution; Forecasts and trends; Fragmentation; Grasslands; Heterogeneity; Identification and classification; Independent variables; Land use; Land use management; Land use planning; Landscape; Landscape ecology; Population density; Remote sensing; River basins; Rivers; Social factors; Socioeconomic factors; Socioeconomics; Software; Spatial distribution; Spatial heterogeneity; Statistical methods; Sustainable development; Time series; Transfer matrices; Water quality; Water quality management; Watersheds; Woodlands
• ISSN: 2073-4441; 2073-4441
• DOI: 10.3390/w14233872

The temporal and spatial evolution of landscape pattern is the most intuitive form of land use transition. Analyzing the change of landscape pattern and its driving factors is of great significance to land use management and water quality protection in the basin. Based on the land use data obtained from the remote sensing image interpretation of the Yellow River Basin (Henan section) in 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020, the landscape pattern evolution characteristics of the Yellow River Basin (Henan section) were quantitatively studied using the methods of multi-angle land use transfer matrix, land use information atlas, and landscape pattern index, and the influencing factors of landscape pattern evolution of the Yellow River Basin (Henan section) were revealed using the geographic detectors (a new statistical method to measure the explanatory power of independent variables to dependent variables mainly by analyzing the overall differences among various types of geographical spaces). The results show that: (1) From 1990 to 2020, the mutual transformation of land use types in the Yellow River Basin (Henan section) was frequent, and the transformation tracks were diversified. Among them, the outflow behavior of land use types is mainly manifested in the transformation from cultivated land to construction land, and the inflow behavior of land use types is mainly manifested in the transformation from grassland and water to cultivated land. (2) In the information map of land use change in the Yellow River Basin (Henan section) from 1990 to 2020, the stable type had the widest distribution range, accounting for 94.60% of the total area of the study area, with two main change patterns: “cultivated land-cultivated land-cultivated land-cultivated land” and “woodland-woodland-woodland-woodland”, which indicates that the landscape pattern of the basin dominated by cultivated land and woodland has not changed fundamentally. The four land use change structure types, repeated change, early change, intermediate change and continuous change, account for a relatively small proportion and are concentrated in the vicinity of the Yellow River. (3) At the landscape level, the watershed generally shows the trend of decreasing landscape fragmentation, increasing landscape heterogeneity and constantly balancing landscape patch types. At the level of patch type, the landscape dominance of cultivated land decreases, while that of construction land increases. The occupation of constructi