Deng Xiangzheng

The land use and land cover change database and its relative studies in China

In the mid-1990s, we established the national operative dynamic information serving systems on natural resources and environment. During building the land-use/land-cover change (LUCC) database for the mid-1990s, 520 scenes of remotely sensed images of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) were interpreted into land-use/land-cover categories at scale of 1:100,000 under overall digital software environment after being geo-referenced and ortho-rectified. The vector map of land-use/land-cover in China at the scale of 1:100,000 was recently converted into a 1-km raster database that captures all of the high-resolution land-use information by calculating area percentage for each kind of land use category within every cell. Being designed as an operative dynamic information serving system, monitoring the change in land-use/land-cover at national level was executed. We have completed the updating of LUCC database by comparing the TM data in the mid-1990s with new data sources received during 1999–2000 and 1989–1990. The LUCC database has supported greatly the national LUCC research program in China and some relative studies are incompletely reviewed in this paper.

Progress of the research methodologies on the temporal and spatial process of LUCC

After one decade of development, the methods to explore the temporal and spatial process of LUCC (Land Use and Land Cover Change) have been vastly improved; and in some sense a methodology framework used to study the temporal and spatial process is being rapidly developed. The methodology framework is based on the integration of the classical theories of Geography and the recent developed technologies of remote sensing and GIS, which is a new research field to meet the need for scientific information to promote the studies on global change adaptation and sustainable development. It addressed the following: the detection and description of the temporal and spatial process of LUCC, analysis of driving mechanism of LUCC, simulation of LUCC process and evaluation of ecological effect due to LUCC. The formation of methodology framework to study the temporal and spatial process of LUCC, to some extent, has been promoted to tackle the hard-nut topics in science through interdisciplinary efforts among geography, GIS and macro-ecology. The domestic and overseas research trends indicate that the development of detection and analytical technologies of remote sensing information and the methodological innovation of simulating the temporal and spatial process of LUCC, play an important role in promoting the development of methodology framework of the temporal and spatial process of LUCC. The synthetic application of the detection and analytical technologies of LUCC remote sensing information, the construction of multi-source and temporal-spatial data platform and the realization of massive data availability and integration are all kernel components of the methodology framework of the temporal and spatial process of LUCC. We can expect that the research methods system of the temporal and spatial process of LUCC will play a more important role in guiding the research activities of LUCC processes at regional and global levels.

Rocky land desertification and its driving forces in the karst areas of rural Guangxi, Southwest China

With a subtropical climate, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has a typical karst landscape. Rocky desertification has become a serious environmental issue due to its high vulnerability caused by the joint effect of natural settings and human activities, because of which its ecoenvironment has been deteriorated in recent years, and farmland has been disappearing sharply at the same time. This, in turn, has exacerbated the poverty level in the rural areas of the region. In this study, we monitored the spatial distribution of rocky land desertification and its temporal evolution using Landsat TM/ETM images of 1985, 1995, 2000 and 2005. We also analyzed the driving forces of the desertification and its expansion. Through constructing regression models by using all the relevant variables and considering the lagged effects as well as fixed effects, we quantified the exact role of different factors causing rocky land desertification in the study area with some new findings. The new findings in this study are greatly helpful for preserving, restoring and reconstructing the degraded mountain environment in Guangxi and other karst areas in Southwest China, and also for alleviating poverty in the rural areas in the future.

A review on trade-off analysis of ecosystem services for sustainable land-use management

Ecosystem services are substantial elements for human society. The central challenge to meet the human needs from ecosystems while sustain the Earth’s life support systems makes it urgent to enhance efficient natural resource management for sustainable ecological and socioeconomic development. Trade-off analysis of ecosystem services can help to identify optimal decision points to balance the costs and benefits of the diverse human uses of ecosystems. In this sense, the aim of this paper is to provide key insights into ecosystem services trade-off analysis at different scales from a land use perspective, by comprehensively reviewing the trade-offs analysis tools and approaches that addressed in ecology, economics and other fields. The review will significantly contribute to future research on trade-off analysis to avoid inferior management options and offer a win-win solution based on comprehensive and efficient planning for interacting multiple ecosystem services.

Modeling the relationship of land use change and some geophysical indicators for the interlock area of farming and pasturing in China

This paper discusses land-use changes in the interlock area of farming and pasturing (IAFP) in northern China. It presents detailed analyses of land-use features in the IAFP, which are controlled by the macro geomorphic units and geophysical conditions-constraints or advantages. Additionally, it selects some indicators, according to the availability in acquiring and processing their quantitative data, to analyze the canonical correlations between the typical conversion of grassland and geophysical conditions. The preliminary study indicates that the physical conditions are of great advantages to the development of grassland. There exists significant correlation between land use change and some geophysical conditions.

Spatialization model of population based on dataset of land use and land cover change in China

The spatialization of population of counties in China is significant. Firstly, we can gain the estimated values of population density adaptive to different kinds of regions. Secondly, we can integrate effectively population data with other data including natural resources, environment, society and economy, build 1km GRIDs of natural resources reserves per person, population density and other economic and environmental data, which are necessary to the national management and macro adjustment and control of natural resources and dynamic monitoring of population. In order to establish population information system serving national decision-making, three steps ought to be followed: 1) establishing complete geographical spatial data foundation infrastructure including the establishment of electric map of residence with high resolution using topographical map with large scale and high resolution satellite remote sensing data, the determination of attribute information of housing and office buildings, and creating complete set of attribute database and rapid data updating; 2) establishing complete census systems including improving the transformation efficiency from census data to digital database and strengthening the link of census database and geographical spatial database, meanwhile, the government should attach great importance to the establishment and integration of population migration database; 3) considering there is no GIS software specially serving the analysis and management of population data, a practical approach is to add special modules to present software system, which works as a bridge actualizing the digitization and spatialization of population geography research.

Regional differences and determinants of built-up area expansion in China

Based on remote sensing data on land use provided by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and socioeconomic data collected by the authors, this paper analyzes the trends and regional differences in built-up area (BUA) expansion in China from the late 1980s to 2000, and empirically estimates the major determinants of BUA expansion in different regions in 1996–2000. In 1989–2000, although China’s overall BUA expansion accelerated, the trends differed significantly among regions. BUA expansion in the central and western regions accelerated significantly, but it slowed down considerably in the eastern region. The estimation results from our econometric analysis reveal that BUA expansion in the eastern region reached a period when economic growth had no further significant impact on per capita BUA, the land utilization in this region has become more intensive with further expansion of the economy. In the central and western regions, the BUA has expanded remarkably due to the relatively more flexible land development policies and the relatively cheap land prices. Therefore, as the economy continues to grow rapidly, policies relating to BUA expansion and cultivated land reductions may face more serious challenges in the central and western regions.

Landscape change detection in Yulin prefecture

Landscape is a dynamic phenomenon that almost continuously changes. The overall change of a landscape is the result of complex and interacting natural and spontaneous processes and planned actions by man. However, numerous activities by a large number of individuals are not concerted and contribute to the autonomous evolution of the landscape in a similar way as natural processes do. There is a well-established need to detect land use and ecological change so that appropriate policies for the regional sustainable development can be developed. Landscape change detection is considered to be effectively repeated surveillance and needs especially strict protocols to identify landscape change. This paper developed a series of technical frameworks on landscape detection based on Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) Data. Through human-machine interactive interpretation, the interpretation precision was 92.00% in 1986 and 89.73% in 2000. Based on the interpretation results of TM images and taking Yulin prefecture as a case study area, the area of main landscape types was summarized respectively in 1986 and 2000. The landscape pattern changes in Yulin could be divided into ten types.Landscape is a dynamic phenomenon that almost continuously changes. The overall change of a landscape is the result of complex and interacting natural and spontaneous processes and planned actions by man. However, numerous activities by a large number of individuals are not concerted and contribute to the autonomous evolution of the landscape in a similar way as natural processes do. There is a well-established need to detect land use and ecological change so that appropriate policies for the regional sustainable development can be developed. Landscape change detection is considered to be effectively repeated surveillance and needs especially strict protocols to identify landscape change. This paper developed a series of technical frameworks on landscape detection based on Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) Data. Through human-machine interactive interpretation, the interpretation precision was 92.00% in 1986 and 89.73% in 2000. Based on the interpretation results of TM images and taking Yulin prefecture as a case study area, the area of main landscape types was summarized respectively in 1986 and 2000. The landscape pattern changes in Yulin could be divided into ten types.

Structural patterns of land types and optimal allocation of land use in Qinling Mountains

AbstractsThe case study based on Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi Province of China, in virtue of the information from TM image, classifies the land types and analyzes their spatial and temporal differential law, and puts forward three structural patterns of land types in mountainous areas, namely, spatial, quantitative and qualitative structures of mountainous land types. Furthermore, it has been noticed that the analysis of structural patterns can disclose the heterogeneity and orderliness of combination of land types, which can lay the theoretic foundation for comprehensively recognizing ecological characteristics and succession law of structure and function of land types. After the all-around comparative analysis, an optimal allocation of land use in Qinling Mountains has been put forward according to the principle of sustainable development and landscape ecology, which can lay the scientific foundation in practice for the structural adjustment and distribution optimization from the macro level to micro level.

Internet based environmental monitoring information system and its application in Yili Prefecture

With the development of Internet technologies, Internet Based Information System (IBIS) arises with more advantages: Firstly, it is convenient for users to use owing to the introduction of Internet technologies. Secondly, it benefits greatly the data dissemination and data sharing based on Internet. The most important but not the last is that we can establish the information service network supported by its technologies and the facilities of information highway. So, it would be significant to design IBIS to realize the data collection, sharing and dissemination on Internet. There are many factors affecting regional environment. So it is not easy to realize the integrated environmental monitoring. Given this, we designed the Internet based environmental monitoring information system. By the virtue of the Internet based environmental monitoring information system, the management and storage of environmental monitoring data would be easier, which lays the foundation to actualize the environmental monitoring efficiently.